Lee, Yu Heng Daryl;
Berry, CJ;
Shanks, DR;
(2024)
Kelley’s Paradox and strength skewness in research on unconscious mental processes.
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review
10.3758/s13423-024-02578-1.
(In press).
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Abstract
A widely adopted approach in research on unconscious perception and cognition involves contrasting behavioral or neural responses to stimuli that have been presented to participants (e.g., old items in a memory test) against those that have not (e.g., new items), and which participants do not discriminate in their conscious reports. We demonstrate that such contrasts do not license inferences about unconscious processing, for 2 reasons. One is Kelley’s Paradox, a statistical phenomenon caused by regression to the mean. In the inevitable presence of measurement error, true awareness of the contrasted stimuli is not equal. The second is a consequence, within the framework of Signal Detection Theory, of unequal skewness in the strengths of target and nontarget items. The fallacious reasoning that underlies the employment of this contrast methodology is illustrated through both computational simulations and formal analysis and its prevalence is documented in a narrative literature review. Additionally, a recognition memory experiment is reported which tests and confirms a prediction of our analysis of the contrast methodology and corroborates the susceptibility of this method to artefacts attributable to Kelley’s Paradox and strength skewness. This work challenges the validity of conclusions drawn from this popular analytic approach.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Kelley’s Paradox and strength skewness in research on unconscious mental processes |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3758/s13423-024-02578-1 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02578-1 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Implicit memory, Models of recognition memory, Recognition memory, Word recognition |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10196386 |
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