Jessecae K. Marsh Texas Tech University What Does that Symptom Mean? Classifying Ambiguous Information in the Clinical Setting

Interpreting ambiguous symptoms Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Patient has history of depression Patient has history of high cholesterol

Interpreting ambiguous symptoms Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Patient has history of high cholesterol Patient has history of depression

Interpreting ambiguous symptoms Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Patient has history of high cholesterol Patient has history of depression

Interpreting ambiguous symptoms Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Drinks to excess ??

 Causal theories in everyday causal reasoning Marsh & Ahn (2009)  Influence of context in clinicians’ reasoning With Andres De Los Reyes Two Studies

 Causal theories in everyday causal reasoning Marsh & Ahn (2009)  Influence of context in clinicians’ reasoning With Andres De Los Reyes Two Studies

Reasoning about causal events EffectNo Effect Cause No Cause Cheng (1997); Collins & Shanks (2002); Jenkins & Ward (1965); Rescorla & Wagner (1972)

Reasoning about causal events = ? How do causal theories help classify ambiguous events?

Participants saw easily classified data intermixed with ambiguous data Experiment Overview

Tall bacteria cause protein presence

Tall with protein

Tall bacteria cause protein presence Tall with protein No

Tall bacteria cause protein presence Tall with proteinShort with no protein No

Participants saw easily classified data intermixed with ambiguous data Asked to estimate how many trials they saw of the four information types Categorizing Ambiguous Events

PresentAbsent Categorizing Ambiguous Events Results Observed trial frequencies

PresentAbsent Categorizing Ambiguous Events Results Observed trial frequenciesReported frequencies PresentAbsent Tall Short

PresentAbsent Categorizing Ambiguous Events Results Observed trial frequencies PresentAbsent Tall Short Reported frequencies Middle height counted as tall

PresentAbsent Categorizing Ambiguous Events Results Observed trial frequencies

PresentAbsent Categorizing Ambiguous Events Results Observed trial frequencies PresentAbsent Tall Short Reported frequencies Middle height counted as short

Categorizing Ambiguous Events Results PresentAbsent Tall Short Reported frequencies Middle height counted as short PresentAbsent Tall Short Reported frequencies Middle height counted as tall

Categorizing Ambiguous Events Perceptual similarity judgments PretestAmbiguous conditions

Summary of Marsh & Ahn (2009)  A hypothesis can be used to assimilate ambiguous information into a current theory

Summary of Marsh & Ahn (2009) Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Drinks to excess Anxiety Drinks to excess

Summary of Marsh & Ahn (2009) Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Drinks to excess Anxiety Drinks to excess

Summary of Marsh & Ahn (2009) Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Drinks to excess Anxiety Drinks to excess

 People will use causal theories to interpret ambiguous information in lay causal reasoning settings. Marsh & Ahn (2009)  Clinicians will use non-diagnostic, contextual information to interpret diagnostic information With Andres De Los Reyes Two Studies

In collaboration with Andres De Los Reyes, Ph.D. (University of Maryland) How does the context in which diagnostic features present affect clinicians diagnostic judgments? The context of clinical symptoms

 stays out at night  run away from home overnight  truant from school  stolen without confronting a victim  bullies others  initiates fights  lies or "cons" others  broken into someone else's house, building, or car  destroyed others' property (other than by fire setting)  stolen while confronting a victim  used a weapon  fire setting  cruel to people  cruel to animals  forced someone into sexual activity Symptoms of Conduct Disorder

 Have clinicians rate criterial symptoms of CD in high association and low association context.  Evaluate whether:  context affects evaluation of criterial symptoms in general.  context affects features differently. General Study Overview

 We found that clinicians were affected by context.  High context received higher ratings than low.  Not all features were affected equally  Some features seem to be impervious to context. Preliminary Results

Summary of Clinicians’ Context Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Drinks to excess Jogs on a regular basis Enjoys outdoor sports Extremely motivated in life

Summary of Clinicians’ Context Chest pain and constriction Panic attackHeart attack Drinks to excess Jogs on a regular basis Enjoys outdoor sports Extremely motivated in life

Thank you.