"On-line" versus memory-based judgments: Triggering conditions and empirical methods for differentiation

In social perception two different judgment processes can be distinguished. On the one hand judgments can be formed "on-line" during the encoding of i nformation and stored as independent units in memory. On the other hand per sons can form judgments later after the encoding of the information. In thi s case they first have to recall earlier encoded information as a basis of their judgments. In the current paper we review conditions eliciting these judgmental processes. We then discuss several methods to differentiate empi rically between on-line and memory-based judgments. Two experiments were co nducted to compare these different discrimination methods. The results show that quality of memory as well as response latencies (for judgments and fo r memory) are reliable in discriminating between on-line and memory-based j udgments. Response latencies also enabled more detailled analyses of judgme nt processses. In contrast, correlational methods provided less reliable di scrimination between on-line and memory-based judgments.