Category Width and Decision Making in Perception

Abstract

The cognitive dimension called category width may be related to decision-making behavior in the following way: broad categorizers tend to make more Type I errors while narrow categorizers are more inclined to make Type II errors. This contention was investigated using measures of decision-making performance on an auditory detection task. No correlations obtained between category-width measures and decision measures for 43 female Ss. However, for 38 male Ss, the correlation between category-width score and Type I error rate was significant as predicted. The correlation between category-width scores and over-all correct decision rate was also significant. A substantial relationship was also found between quantitative aptitude and category-width scores and factor scores for the two category-width factors for males. For women, quantitative aptitude did not seem to be related to category-width measures.