Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:32:19.826Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Base-rate neglect and coarse probability representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2007

Yanlong Sun
Affiliation:
School of Health Information Sciences, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030. [email protected]@uth.tmc.edu
Hongbin Wang
Affiliation:
School of Health Information Sciences, The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030. [email protected]@uth.tmc.edu

Abstract

We believe that when assessing the likelihood of uncertain events, statistically unsophisticated people utilize a coarse internal scale that only has a limited number of categories. The success of the nested sets hypothesis may lie in its ability to provide an appropriate set structure of the problem by reducing the computational demands.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cox, E. P. III. (1980) The optimal number of response alternatives for a scale: A review. Journal of Marketing Research 17:407–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dehaene, S., Spelke, E., Pinel, P., Stanescu, R. & Tsivkin, S. (1999) Sources of mathematical thinking: Behavioral and brain-imaging evidence. Science 284(5416):970–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gigerenzer, G. & Hoffrage, U. (1995) How to improve Bayesian reasoning without instruction: Frequency formats. Psychological Review 102:684704.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, G. A. (1956) The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information. Psychological Review 63:8197.Google Scholar
Sun, Y., Wang, H., Zhang, J. & Smith, J. W. (in press) Probabilistic judgment on a coarser scale. Cognitive Systems Research.Google Scholar