The Effects of Feedback and Predictability of Human Judgment

Previous research has found that when subjects are given cognitive feedback, they reach higher levels of achievement than when they are given outcome feedback. It was hypothesized that this finding was due in part to the predictability of the task environment since outcome feedback is at a distinct disadvantage as a sole means of conveying such information. A study was conducted to compare response and outcome feedback under three predictability conditions. The design included a control group receiving no feedback at all, two response groups differing in precision of feedback information, and two outcome feedback groups differing on a quantity dimension. The study also attempted to clarify the definition of feedback and to equate the availability of task information in the various feedback conditions that were compared. Contrary to expectations, the utility of outcome feedback was inferior to that of response feedback under all three predictability conditions tested. In fact, an interaction revealed that the effect of increased predictability raised rather than lowered the disparity between outcome and response feedback performance. The results also revealed that a control group receiving no feedback at all performed as well as or better than those with feedback when the availability of task information was equated. Moreover, eliminating the memory requirement inherent in the use of outcome feedback only worsened performance. Similarly, adding precision to the response feedback condition beyond the level of mere directional error information did not improve performance.