Partial matching in the Moses illusion: Response bias not sensitivity

Partial matching in the Moses illusion: response bias not sensitivity.

Previous research has demonstrated that people have enormous difficulty in detecting distortions in such questions as, "How many animals of each kind did Moses take in the Ark?" Reder and Kusbit (1991) argued that the locus of the effect must be the existence of a partial-match process. Other research has suggested that this partial-match process operates at the word level and that, with adequa...

Using the Moses Illusion to investigate the external speech monitor

In speaking, people inevitably make mistakes that need to be corrected. Two points at which errors can be caught are just before words are produced (pre-articulatory speech) and just after words are produced (post-articulatory speech). Levelt (1983, 1989) called these the internal and external monitors. Both comprehension and self-correction are crucial to any interpersonal communication. Knowi...

Detection Sensitivity and Response Bias

Incomplete Meaning Processing: Moses Illusion And Metaphor Understanding

EXTENDED ABSTRACT This talk will present an ACT-R model that uni-es two phenomena in text comprehension: Moses illusion and metaphor understanding. Empirical data about Moses illusion shows that, in about 45% of cases, people are not able to detect distortions in sentences like How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?, in spite of being instructed to look for distortions and in ...

Ageing and the Moses illusion: older adults fall for Moses but if asked directly, stick with Noah.

Many people respond "two" to the question "How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?", even though they know the reference should be to Noah. The Moses Illusion demonstrates a failure to apply stored knowledge (Erickson & Mattson, 1981). Of interest was whether older adults' robust knowledge bases would protect them from vulnerability to this illusion. Of secondary interest were ...