Collaborative Research on the Dynamics of Candidate Evaluation

这个项目的主要目标是开发一个计算机程序来模拟形成对政治职位候选人印象的认知过程。该程序将是研究人员认知和评估理论的模型，将考虑哪些信息，这些信息是如何在内存中存储和检索的，以及现有信息如何整合到对候选人的总结评估中。目前的投票理论对候选人评估中的认知做出了不切实际的假设，并且没有对他们的假设进行严格的测试。其中一位研究人员的大型实证研究将提供关于公民候选人评价的信息，这些信息可以用于检验关于认知和候选人评价的理论。

The major goal of this project is to develop a computer program to model the cognitive processes involved in forming impressions of candidates for political office. The program will be a model of the researchers' theory of cognition and evaluation and will account for what information is attended to, how the information is stored in memory and retrieved, and how available information is integrated into a summary evaluation of candidates. Current theories of voting make unrealistic assumptions about cognition in candidate evaluation and do not subject their assumptions to rigorous testing. A large empirical study by one of the researchers will provide the information on citizen candidate evaluation that can be used in testing the theory about cognition and candidate evaluation.