The Morra Game as a Naturalistic Test Bed for Investigating Automatic and Voluntary Processes in Random Sequence Generation (original) (raw)
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Generation of random sequences by human subjects: Cognitive operations or psychological process?
1987
Human subjects have difficulty in generating sequences that satisfy accepted requirements for ran domness. This is often attributed to faulty cognitive operations or concepts of randomness. This article explores the alternative possibility that these deficiencies result from the operation of the same basic mechanisms for selecting responses that are studied in psychophysics. The features of random generation are briefly reviewed, an experiment is reported, and a model for random number genera tion is presented. The model assumes that an internal analogue source produces a random variable which may be represented on an internal dimension, the aleatory decision axis. The subject uses the measures produced by this random generator to select discrete responses. The mechanisms that select these responses use decision criteria whose positions on a decision axis are determined in accordance with a theory of the setting and maintenance of criteria presented elsewhere (Treisman & Williams, 1984). It is shown that this model can explain some important features of random sequence generation, and that what may be described as "cognitive intrusions" can be distinguished from effects of the response selection system. There are at least two major classes of explanations used in experimental psychology, although the distinction between them is often overlooked. The first may be called cognitive. (The term may not be ideal because it also applies to an area of in quiry, but we use it for want of a better one.) The second class does not have an equally familiar label; we shall refer'to such explanations as structural. The distinction is this: A "cognitive" explanation is based on adaptations of or analogies to intuitive descriptions of human behavior, experience, and thought. Thus, terms such as attention, matching, comparing, arousal, retriev ing a memory, rehearsal, and image derive from lay observa tions of the phenomena, in self or others, but in theoretical psy chology they are used as primitives of cognitive explanation. Such explanations may be applied in two ways. First, as describ ing conscious thought processes; for example, when spoken or written protocols are used to analyze human problem-solving processes (Newell, Shaw, & Simon, 1958), or when the rate of internal speech ("experiences which seem to have the qualities of heard or spoken words") is measured (Landauer, 1962, p. 646). Alternatively, this type of explanation may refer to pro cesses assumed not to be conscious or accessible to introspec tion. For example, Steinberg's (1969) theory of memory scan ning relies on search and comparison operations that proceed This work was supported by the Medical Research Council of Great Britain. Andrew Faulkner was responsible for running the experiment and Michel Treisman for the theoretical analysis.
Generation of random sequences by human subjects: A critical survey of literature
Psychological Bulletin, 1972
The subjective concept of randomness is used in many areas of psychological research to explain a variety of experimental results. One method to study randomness is to have subjects generate random series. Unfortunately, few results of the experiments that used this method lend themselves to comparison and synthesis because the investigators employed such a variety of experimental conditions and definitions of mathematical randomness. Some suggestions for future research are made.
Random number generation as an index of controlled processing
Neuropsychology, 2006
Random number generation (RNG) is a functionally complex process that is highly controlled and therefore dependent on Baddeley's central executive. This study addresses this issue by investigating whether key predictions from this framework are compatible with empirical data. In Experiment 1, the effect of increasing task demands by increasing the rate of the paced generation was comprehensively examined. As expected, faster rates affected performance negatively because central resources were increasingly depleted. Next, the effects of participants' exposure were manipulated in Experiment 2 by providing increasing amounts of practice on the task. There was no improvement over 10 practice trials, suggesting that the high level of strategic control required by the task was constant and not amenable to any automatization gain with repeated exposure. Together, the results demonstrate that RNG performance is a highly controlled and demanding process sensitive to additional demands on central resources (Experiment 1) and is unaffected by repeated performance or practice (Experiment 2). These features render the easily administered RNG task an ideal and robust index of executive function that is highly suitable for repeated clinical use.
Control of automated behavior: insights from the discrete sequence production task
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 2013
Work with the discrete sequence production (DSP) task has provided a substantial literature on discrete sequencing skill over the last decades. The purpose of the current article is to provide a comprehensive overview of this literature and of the theoretical progress that it has prompted. We start with a description of the DSP task and the phenomena that are typically observed with it. Then we propose a cognitive model, the dual processor model (DPM), which explains performance of (skilled) discrete key-press sequences. Key features of this model are the distinction between a cognitive processor and a motor system (i.e., motor buffer and motor processor), the interplay between these two processing systems, and the possibility to execute familiar sequences in two different execution modes. We further discuss how this model relates to several related sequence skill research paradigms and models, and we outline outstanding questions for future research throughout the paper. We conclude by sketching a tentative neural implementation of the DPM.
Manipulating attentional load in sequence learning through random number generation
Advances in …, 2012
Implicit learning is often assumed to be an effortless process. However, some artificial grammar learning and sequence learning studies using dual tasks seem to suggest that attention is essential for implicit learning to occur. This discrepancy probably results from the specific type of secondary task that is used. Different secondary tasks may engage attentional resources differently and therefore may bias performance on the primary task in different ways. Here, we used a random number generation (RNG) task, which may allow for a closer monitoring of a participant’s engagement in a secondary task than the popular secondary task in sequence learning studies: tone counting (TC). In the first two experiments, we investigated the interference associated with performing RNG concurrently with a serial reaction time (SRT) task. In a third experiment, we compared the effects of RNG and TC. In all three experiments, we directly evaluated participants’ knowledge of the sequence with a subsequent sequence generation task. Sequence learning was consistently observed in all experiments, but was impaired under dual-task conditions. Most importantly, our data suggest that RNG is more demanding and impairs learning to a greater extent than TC. Nevertheless, we failed to observe effects of the secondary task in subsequent sequence generation. Our studies indicate that RNG is a promising task to explore the involvement of attention in the SRT task.
Individual differences in random sequence generation
Personality and Individual Differences, 1990
Past research has demonstrated that human subjects tend to be poor at generating random sequences, though there are marked individual differences. One variable which may partially account for these individual differences is hemispheric preference. The description of the cognitive state that facilitates ability to generate random sequences resembles in a number of respects the mode of cognitive processing of the right hemisphere. On this premise, the present investigation hypothesized that left lookers on the Conjugate Lateral Eye Movement test, those showing a right hemisphere preference, would generate more random sequences. The subjects were 40 male and 40 female right handed university students. As predicted, left looking was significantly correlated with more random sequence generation. It was suggested that left lookers may utilize a more diffuse mode of attention and may be less likely to apply erroneous subjective concepts of randomness on the sequence generation task.
… Journal Of Modern …, 2010
Humans are deemed ineffective in generating a seemingly random number sequence primarily because of inherent biases and fatigue. Here, we establish statistically that human-generated number sequence in the presence of visual cues considerably reduce one's tendency to be fixated to a certain group of numbers allowing the number distribution to be statistically uniform. We also show that a stitching procedure utilizing auditory cues significantly minimizes human's intrinsic biases towards doublet and sequential ordering of numbers. The article provides extensive experimentation and comprehensive pattern analysis of the sequences formed when humans are tasked to generate a random series using numbers "0" to "9." In the process, we develop a statistical framework for analyzing the apparent randomness of finite discrete sequences via numerical measurements.
A Reversed Turing Test of Human Random Number Generation
Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1999
Based upon distinctions between true randomness, probabilistic randomness, and stochastic randomness, a reversed Turing Test was performed to compare human-generated to computer-generated random numbers. Tests of three hypotheses showed that humans more often fail to behave randomly when assessed by a “probabilistic interrogator” (based on distribution-free nonparametric tests) than by a “stochastic interrogator” (based on parametric testing), that computer-generated numbers displayed both probabilistic and stochastic randomness, and that human failure to pass the reversed Turing Test may be attributed to a nonrandom response pattern embedded in the group data corresponding to the highly automatized human counting skill. In addition to supporting the ubiquitous observation that humans do not behave randomly, these findings suggest that humans, unlike computers, may spontaneously interpose relative amounts of order that preclude successful random generation requiring relative amounts...
Local Sampling with Momentum Accounts for Human Random Sequence Generation
2021
Many models of cognition assume that people can generate independent samples, yet people fail to do so in random generation tasks. One prominent explanation for this behavior is that people use learned schemas. Instead, we propose that deviations from randomness arise from people sampling locally rather than independently. To test these explanations, we teach people one- and two-dimensional arrangements of syllables and ask them to generate random sequences from them. Although our results reproduce characteristic features of human random generation, such as a preference for adjacent items and an avoidance of repetitions, we also find an effect of dimensionality on the patterns people produce. Furthermore, model comparisons revealed that local sampling accounted better for participants' sequences than a schema account. Finally, evaluating the importance of each models' constituents, we show that the local sampling model proposed new states based on its current trajectory, rat...