Selective Retrieval of Stimulus Information versus Thematic Judgments in Natural Language Inferences

摘要

When people make impression judgments about another, the judgment itself can provide an organizing theme for representing the person in memory. Such cognitive representations are likely to include memory for the initial judgment together with at least partial memory for previously obtained stimulus information about the person. Both types of cognitions can then become available as the basis for later memory-based inferences. Previous research has shown that subsequent impression ratings of a stimulus person (on personality dimensions relevant and irrelevant to the initial thematic judgment) are affected by memory for an initial judgment. There is less evidence that such ratings are affected by memory for initial stimulus information. This weak contribution of stimulus information to memory-based impression responses may be due to the expressive constraints inherent in experimenter provided rating scales. The present study examined the relative effects of stimulus information and thematic judgments on unconstrained natural language inferences, rather than on unidimensional trait ratings. This was done by first having subjects judge the suitability of stimulus persons for occupations that varied in their relevance to friendliness and intelligence, and then write an open ended paragraph describing their impressions of the persons. A second group of subjects then rated these paragraphs for their implications regarding friendliness and intelligence. The results showed that subjects' natural language inferences drew on both memory for their initial judgment as well as thematically selected stimulus information. (Author)