Decision Making Psyc 562 Week 6 Shane Davis

“Two minds in one brain”

Making a decision An intuitive judgment is initiated, and – Endorsed by Reasoning system – Adjusted to account for other relevant factor(s) – (Over)corrected in light of bias – Ignored due to violation of subjective rule No intuitive response; deferred to Reasoning

Accessibility Why do some thoughts come to mind more easily than others? – Intuitive judgments vs. need for deliberation Cognitive mechanisms – E.g. prior knowledge/skill Stimulus/situation characteristics

Determinants of accessibility Stimulus properties – Natural assessments Size, distance, loudness, surprisingness, good/bad, etc. – Context Attention – Salience / familiarity – Deliberate attention

Framing effects FramingTreatment ATreatment B PositiveSaves 200 lives33% chance of saving all 600 people; 66% chance of saving no one Negative400 people will die33% chance that no people will die, 66% probability that all 600 will die

Prospect theory Reference dependence – Perception in context of prior/concurrent stimuli Loss aversion Narrow framing

Attribute substitution Judgment via heuristic – Inaccessible target attribute Cognitively/computationally complex – Accessible related attribute(s) Priming – Substitution not caught by Reasoning system “A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?”

Prototype heuristics Substitution of an average for a sum – Similarity over probability Extension neglect – Ignore size of set even though it’s relevant E.g. Lake cleanup in small region vs. entire province Violations of monotonicity – E.g. Dinnerware sets

Naturalistic decision making How do experts make decisions? – Uncertainty – Time pressure – Organizational constraints Tacit knowledge – Recognition-primed decision making – Cognitive task analysis

Heuristics and biases Experts can make (costly) mistakes – Illusion of validity Intuition errors – Implications for human factors? UX “experts”?

Reconciling NDM and HB NDM: Field studies; HB: Laboratory studies Genuine skill vs. inappropriate heuristics Knowing what one doesn’t know – Subjective confidence is not sufficient Validity of task environment – Predictability of inputs and outputs – Leads to skill development Boundaries of expertise

Thank you! Any questions?