Information load, proportion of relevance, and relevance perception

The effect of experimentally induced relevance on subjective relevance perception was investigated. Ss participated in a complex decision-making task. In Condition A, Ss received 1, 2, 3, or 4 relevant messages out of a total of 10 messages for any one of four (randomized) playing periods. Condition B exposed Ss to 1, 2, 3, or 4 relevant messages out of 20, and Condition C exposed Ss to 4, 8, 12, or 16 relevant messages out of 20. All other messages received by the Ss were irrelevant to their task. Messages had been prerated by a parallel population who did not participate in the complex task. It was found that subjective perceptions of relevance in complex tasks tended to be overestimates of actual relevance levels, particularly when the proportion of relevant information to total information was low. Further, Ss tended to underestimate actual relevance levels when information load of relevant items greatly exceeded the optimum established by complexity theory research.

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