Judgements and memory

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Most judgments (e.g., whether a computer is expensive) are either implicitly or explicitly comparative. The goal of the present proposal is to extend the investigation of such comparisons and their effects on other aspects of cognition, particularly memory, using a modification of the Change of Standard (COS) paradigm originally created by Higgins and colleagues. COS effects occur when an item is judged in one context, but must be recalled, recognized, or otherwise used in a different context. Imagine, for example, doing a personnel assessment. Employee X is better than the other employees at the time of the assessment. Time goes by and you perform other assessments. Now, you try to recall the Employee X's actual performance on some particular measure (say, total sales). What you mostly remember is that X is a good employee, so you recall X as having higher than average total sales. But, is this accurate?  It depends on whether the average you remember is higher, lower, or the same as the context in which you originally judged Employee X to be a good employee. My work on this topic has the potential to identify fundamental principles of memory operating in such domains, as well as to lead to important applications to real life areas, such as personnel assessment.