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Base-rate respect: From ecological rationality to dual processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2007

Aron K. Barbey  and
Steven A. Sloman
Aron K. Barbey
Affiliation:
Cognitive Neuroscience Section, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Bethesda, MD 20892-1440, [email protected]
Steven A. Sloman
Affiliation:
Cognitive and Linguistics Science, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, [email protected]://www.cog.brown.edu/~sloman/
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Abstract

The phenomenon of base-rate neglect has elicited much debate. One arena of debate concerns how people make judgments under conditions of uncertainty. Another more controversial arena concerns human rationality. In this target article, we attempt to unpack the perspectives in the literature on both kinds of issues and evaluate their ability to explain existing data and their conceptual coherence. From this evaluation we conclude that the best account of the data should be framed in terms of a dual-process model of judgment, which attributes base-rate neglect to associative judgment strategies that fail to adequately represent the set structure of the problem. Base-rate neglect is reduced when problems are presented in a format that affords accurate representation in terms of nested sets of individuals.

Keywords

Base-rate neglectBayesian reasoningdual process theorynested set hypothesisprobability judgment
Type
Main Articles
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , June 2007 , pp. 241 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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