Decision Making

Question 1

What Is judgement?

Answer 1

deciding on the likelihood of various events using incomplete information

Question 2

What is decision making?

Answer 2

selecting one option from several possibilities

Question 3

What is Bayesian inference?

Answer 3

tells us how our initial beliefs should be updated by evidence or experience to produce posterior probabilities
uses baye’s theorem to calculate a probability of a hypothesis

Question 4

What is Bayes’ theorem?

Answer 4

“degree of belief” is quantified by probability
observed data is used to update prior beliefs to become posterior beliefs

Question 5

Kahneman and Tversky (1972) taxicab problem

Answer 5

cab involved in an accident
85% of cabs are green, 15% are blue
women identifies can as blue
but when tested, she was wrong 20% of the time

Question 6

What was the probability that cab was blue?

Answer 6

41%

Question 7

How did bayesians get to that result?

Answer 7

12% chance that witness correctly identifies blue cab (15% x 80%)
17% chance of witness incorrectly identifying green cab as blue (85% x 20%)
29% chance the witness identifies cab as blue (12% + 17%)
41% chance cab identified as blue is blue (12% divided by 29%)

Question 8

According to Bayes’ theorem, people making judgements should take into account the base rate info, what is base rate information?

Answer 8

the relative frequency of an event within a given population
base rate info is often ignored

Question 9

Kahneman and Tvertsky: heuristics

Answer 9

most people given judgement tasks use rules of thumb or heuristics

Question 10

What are heuristics?

Answer 10

strategies that ignore part of the information with the goal of making decisions more quickly
they often reduce the effort associated with cognitive tasks

Question 11

What is representativeness heuristic?

Answer 11

assumption that an object belongs to a specific category because it is representative of that category

Question 12

What is conjunction fallacy?

Answer 12

mistaken assumption that the probability of a conjunction of two events (occurring at same point) is greater that the probability of one of them

Question 13

Krynski and Tenenbaum (2007): heeding base rates

Answer 13

we possess valuable causal knowledge allowing us to make accurate judgements using base rate info in everyday lives

Question 14

What is availability heuristic?

Answer 14

frequencies of events can be estimated accurately by the subjective ease with which they can retrieved
relies on immediate info at the time

Question 15

What is affective heuristic?

Answer 15

using ones emotional responses to influence rapid judgements or decisions

Question 16

What is anchoring and adjustment heuristic?

Answer 16

judgements are influenced by a reference point (anchor) which can be completely irrelevant

Question 17

Gigerenzer: heuristics

Answer 17

argued heuristics are often very reliable when judging probabilities or making decisions

Question 18

Gigerenzer: 3 examples of reliable heuristics

Answer 18

fast and frugal (rapid processing of limited info)
Take-the-best (sequence of search rule, stopping rule and decision rule)
recognition heuristic

Question 19

Kahneman: probability judgments depend on processing within 2 systems

Answer 19

system 1 = fast, automatic, effortless
system 2 = slower, effortful

Question 20

Von Neumann and Morgenstern

Answer 20

treated decisions as if they were gambles
outcome of a decisions is unknown

Question 21

What are the key assumptions of Kahneman and Tvertsky’s prospect theory?

Answer 21

• people identity a reference point representing their present state
• people are more sensitive to potential losses than potential gains

Question 22

What is loss aversion?

Answer 22

where people are more sensitive to potential losses than potential gains

Question 23

What is risk aversion?

Answer 23

where people prefer a sure gain to a risky (but potentially greater) gain

Question 24

What is framing effect?

Answer 24

the finding that decisions can be influenced by situational aspects which are irrelevant to optimal decision making
e.g choosing yogurt that says 80% fat free over one that says 20% fat

Question 25

What is sunk costs effect?

Answer 25

refers to investing additional resources to justify a previous commitment that has s far proved unsuccessful

Question 26

What are evidence accumulation models?

Answer 26

a category of computational models used to understand cognitive processes responsible for decision making
gradually accumulating evidence overtime to final decision can be made

Question 27

Who came up with the Drift diffusion model?

Answer 27

Ratcliffe and McKoon

Question 28

What does the Drift Diffusion model involve?

Answer 28

3 parameters:
- drift rate (captures sensitivity to stimulus, rate they accumulate evidence)
- boundary separation (priories speed or accuracy)
- non decision time

Question 29

When boundaries / thresholds are distanced, what does this mean for ppts reaction time?

Answer 29

ppts are slower but more accurate

Question 30

How do ppts with ASD respond in perceptual decision making tasks compared to controls?

Answer 30

ppts with ASD respond slower than controls in perceptual decision making tasks

Question 31

What do people with autism prioritise in decision making?

Answer 31

ASD ppts priorities accuracy over speed of a decision
they are more cautious and conservative
set threshold much wider