Measuring the relative contributions of rule-based and exemplar-based processes in judgment: Validation of a simple model

Judgments and decisions can rely on rules to integrate cue information or on the retrieval of similar exemplars from memory. research on exemplar-based processes in judgment has discovered several task variables influencing the dominant mode of processing. this research often aggregates data across participants or classifies them as using either exemplar-based or cuebased processing. it has been argued for theoretical and empirical reasons that both kinds of processes might operate together or in parallel. hence,a classification of strategies may be a severe oversimplification that also sacrifices statistical power to detect task effects. we present a simple measurement tool combining both processing modes. the simple model contains a mixture parameter quantifying the relative contribution of both kinds of processes in a judgment and decision task. in three experiments,we validate the measurement model by demonstrating that instructions and task variables affect the mixture parameter in predictable ways,both in memory-based and screen-based judgments. © 2017,society for judgment and decision making. all rights reserved.