Sighted listeners recall prior ratings and ignore audible position differences

Evidence

Figure 10.2 shows that in blind evaluations listeners responded to the positional differences: adjacent bars of the same color have significantly different heights, showing the different ratings when the loudspeaker was in position 1 or 2. In contrast, in the sighted tests, there were no significant differences in ratings for the two locations, and the ratings themselves showed the same pattern that was evident in the first experiment (Figure 10.1); listeners obviously recognized the loudspeakers and recalled the ratings they had been given in the first experiment. In addition, some of the error bars in the sighted tests are quite short; no thought is required when you know what you are listening to. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1060

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to memory-bias and anchoring effects in evaluation; also to the Law of Small Effects debate in sensory evaluation.