The Effects Of Task Characteristics, Motivation And Ability On University Students’ Hindsight Bias

Hindsight bias is the inclination to see events that have already occurred as being more predictable than they were before they took place. The available researches take the text and picture messages as materials to do lots of studies on hindsight bias and prove that hindsight bias phenomenon exists in many fields. This study takes Chinese two-word vocabulary phonetic information as research materials to design five experiments to study the effects of task characteristics, motivation and ability on university students’hindsight bias.The first experiment studies the effects of research paradigm and task difficulty on university students’hindsight bias. The subjects are 99 university students. Hypothesis design and memory design are used in the study. The results show: (1) University students have got hindsight bias in phonetic information material task. (2) There are no significant difference in hindsight bias between two types of designs. (3) Task difficulty effects the hindsight bias significantly, that is to say, the more difficult the task is, the larger the hindsight bias is.The second experiment explores the effects of stimulus presentation methods on university students. The subjects are 93 university students. Methods of stimulus presentation are divided into progressively presenting results and directly presenting results. Hypothesis design is used in the study. The results show that stimulus presentation method effects the hindsight bias significantly. Comparing with the progressive presentation method, direct presentation method demonstrates larger hindsight bias.The third experiment investigates the effects of motivation on university students. The subjects are 91 university students. Memory design is applied. The experiment takes the“normal score of 10 points”as a reward and makes whether students need it as the motivation level indicators. The results show that incentive motivation strategy has no significant effect on hindsight bias.The fourth experiment examines the effects of the judge’s ability characteristics on hindsight bias. The subjects are 29 students with normal hearing from comprehensive universities and 28 students with visual impairments but normal hearing from schools for deaf-mutes. Hypothesis design is used in the study. The results show: (1) The judge’s ability characteristics has no significant effects on hindsight bias. Both of the two groups show hindsight bias. (2) The mean of the group with visual impairments is apparently higher than that of the group without visual impairments.The fifth experiment discusses the effects of the ability characteristics of a person being judged on hindsight bias. The subjects are 74 university students, who are divided into three groups according to their ability characteristics. That is to say, group with high ability, the group with low ability and the group without ability feedback. Hypothesis design is used in the study. The results show that ability characteristics of the person being judged exerts an apparent effect on hindsight bias. When judging the person with high ability, students show hindsight bias. While judging the person with low ability, students do the opposite.Based on the above five experimental findings, this study concludes that: (1) University students show hindsight bias in phonetic information tasks. (2) Task characteristics of difficulty and stimulus presentation method effect hindsight bias. The more difficult the task is, the larger the hindsight bias is. The fact that hindsight bias effects significantly illustrates that perceptual fluency theory does not apply to phonetic hindsight bias. Whereas the problem-solving experience can reduce hindsight bias. Meta-cognitive factors have impacts on it. (3) The fact that incentive motivation strategy does not further reduce hindsight bias explains that hindsight bias is a robust cognitive phenomenon. (4) Characteristics of the individual’s own ability level has no effects on the hindsight bias. (5) Individuals can adjust their own judgments to the ability characteristics of the person being judged, and thus show different hindsight bias.