Information Sampling And Adaptive Cognition

by Edited by Klaus Fiedler , Peter Juslin

• ISBN13: 9780521539333
• ISBN10: 0521539331
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-12-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

A ‘sample’ is not only a concept from statistics that has penetrated common sense but also a metaphor that has inspired much research and theorizing in current psychology. The sampling approach emphasizes the selectivity and the biases that are inherent in the samples of information input with which judges and decision makers are fed. As environmental samples are rarely random, or representative of the world as a whole, decision making calls for censorship and critical evaluation of the data given. However, even the most intelligent decision makers tend to behave like ‘näive intuitive statisticians’: quite sensitive to the data given but uncritical concerning the source of the data. Thus, the vicissitudes of sampling information in the environment together with the failure to monitor and control sampling effects adequately provide a key to re-interpreting findings obtained in the last two decades of research on judgment and decision making.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	vii
PART I INTRODUCTION
Taking the Interface between Mind and Environment Seriously	3	(30)
Klaus Fiedler
Peter Juslin
PART II THE PSYCHOLOGICAL LAW OF LARGE NUMBERS
Good Sampling, Distorted Views: The Perception of Variability	33	(20)
Yaakov Kareev
Intuitive Judgments about Sample Size	53	(19)
Peter Sedlmeier
The Role of Information Sampling in Risky Choice	72	(20)
Ralph Hertwig
Greg Barron
Elke U. Weber
Ido Erev
Less Is More in Covariation Detection -- Or Is It?	92	(35)
Peter Juslin
Klaus Fiedler
Nick Chater
PART III BIASED AND UNBIASED JUDGMENTS FROM BIASED SAMPLES
Subjective Validity Judgments as an Index of Sensitivity to Sampling Bias	127	(20)
Peter Freytag
Klaus Fiedler
An Analysis of Structural Availability Biases, and a Brief Study	147	(6)
Robyn M. Dawes
Subjective Confidence and the Sampling of Knowledge	153	(30)
Joshua Klayman
Jack B. Soll
Peter Juslin
Anders Winman
Contingency Learning and Biased Group Impressions	183	(27)
Thorsten Meiser
Mental Mechanisms: Speculations on Human Causal Learning and Reasoning	210	(29)
Nick Chater
Mike Oaksford
PART IV WHAT INFORMATION CONTENTS ARE SAMPLED?
What's in a Sample? A Manual for Building Cognitive Theories	239	(22)
Gerd Gigerenzer
Assessing Evidential Support in Uncertain Environments	261	(38)
Chris M. White
Derek J. Koehler
Information Sampling in Group Decision Making: Sampling Biases and Their Consequences	299	(28)
Andreas Mojzisch
Stefan Schulz-Hardt
Confidence in Aggregation of Opinions from Multiple Sources	327	(26)
David V. Budescu
Self as Sample	353	(28)
Joachim I. Krueger
Melissa Acevedo
Jordan M. Robbins
PART V VICISSITUDES OF SAMPLING IN THE RESEARCHER'S MIND AND METHOD
Which World Should Be Represented in Representative Design?	381	(28)
Ulrich Hoffrage
Ralph Hertwig
``I'm m/n Confident That I'm Correct'': Confidence in Foresight and Hindsight as a Sampling Probability	409	(31)
Anders Winman
Peter Juslin
Natural Sampling of Stimuli in (Artificial) Grammar Learning	440	(16)
Fenna H. Poletiek
Is Confidence in Decisions Related to Feedback? Evidence from Random Samples of Real-World Behavior	456	(29)
Robin M. Hogarth
Index	485