How are base rates used? Interactive and group effects

1996 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-36
Author(s):  
Peter J. McLeod ◽  
Margo Watt

AbstractKoehler is right that base rate information is used, to various degrees, both in laboratory tasks and in everyday life. However, it is not time to turn our backs on laboratory tasks and focus solely on ecologically valid decision making. Tightly controlled experimental data are still needed to understand how base rate information is used, and how this varies among groups.

2010 ◽  
Vol 13 (05) ◽  
pp. 607-619 ◽  
Author(s):  
DIEMO URBIG

Previous research investigating base rate neglect as a bias in human information processing has focused on isolated individuals. This study complements this research by showing that in settings of interacting individuals, especially in settings of social learning, where individuals can learn from one another, base rate neglect can increase a population's welfare. This study further supports the research arguing that a population with members biased by neglecting base rates does not need to perform worse than a population with unbiased members. Adapting the model of social learning suggested by Bikhchandani, Hirshleifer and Welch (The Journal of Political Economy100 (1992) 992–1026) and including base rates that differ from generic cases such as 50–50, conditions are identified that make underweighting base rate information increasing the population's welfare. The base rate neglect can start a social learning process that otherwise had not been started and thus base rate neglect can generate positive externalities improving a population's welfare.


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 539-550
Author(s):  
Ash Puttaswamy ◽  
Anjelica Barone ◽  
Kathleen D. Viezel ◽  
John O. Willis ◽  
Ron Dumont

An area of particular importance when examining index scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–Fifth Edition (WISC-V) is the utilization and interpretation of critical values and base rates associated with differences between an individual’s subtest scaled score and the individual’s mean scaled score for an index. For the WISC-V, critical value and base rate information is provided for the core subtests contained within each of the primary indices. However, critical value and base rate information is not provided by the test publisher for subtests within the Quantitative Reasoning Index (QRI), Auditory Working Memory Index (AWMI), Nonverbal Index (NVI), General Ability Index (GAI), Cognitive Proficiency Index (CPI), Naming Speed Index (NSI), Symbol Translation Index (STI), and Storage and Retrieval Index (SRI). This study investigates and provides critical values and base rates for performance on the QRI, AWMI, NVI, GAI, CPI, NSI, STI, and SRI.


2007 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 262-263
Author(s):  
Edmund Fantino ◽  
Stephanie Stolarz-Fantino

AbstractWe present evidence supporting the target article's assertion that while the presentation of base-rate information in a natural frequency format can be helpful in enhancing sensitivity to base rates, method of presentation is not a panacea. Indeed, we review studies demonstrating that when subjects directly experience base rates as natural frequencies in a trial-by-trial setting, they evince large base-rate neglect.


2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth A. Brown

When an individual describes persecution, how does one know whether this constitutes reality or a delusion? An erroneous clinical decision can lead to unnecessary treatment or lack of appropriate treatment. Knowledge of base rates of relevant events can inform the decision-making process and potentially increase the accuracy of clinical judgments. This article reviews base rates of events that could be perceived as delusions as well as the correlates associated with these events. Commonly occurring events include discrimination, mental illness stigma, criminal victimization, infidelity, conspiracy beliefs, and stalking. Surveillance and intentional poisoning are rare events. Clinicians who possess accurate base rates of events and their correlates will likely engage in more informed and accurate clinical judgments.


1996 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Windschitl ◽  
Gary L. Wells

AbstractBase rates have no necessary relation to judgments that are not themselves probabilities. There is no logical imperative, for instance, that behavioral base rates must affect causal attributions or that base rate information should affect judgments of legal liability. Decision theorists should be cautious in arguing that base rates place normative constraints on judgments of anything other than posterior probabilities.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ariel Zylberberg ◽  
Daniel M Wolpert ◽  
Michael N Shadlen

SummaryAccurate decisions require knowledge of prior probabilities (e.g., prevalence or base rate) but it is unclear how prior probability is learned in the absence of a teacher. We hypothesized that humans could learn base rates from experience making decisions, even without feedback. Participants made difficult decisions about the direction of dynamic random dot motion. For each block of 15-42 trials, the base rate favored left or right by a different amount. Participants were not informed of the base rate, yet they gradually biased their choices and thereby increased accuracy and confidence in their decisions. They achieved this by updating knowledge of base rate after each decision, using a counterfactual representation of confidence that simulates a neutral prior. The strategy is consistent with Bayesian updating of belief and suggests that humans represent both true confidence, that incorporates the evolving belief of the prior, and counterfactual confidence that discounts the prior.


1996 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen E. Edgell ◽  
Robert M. Roe ◽  
Clayton H. Dodd

AbstractThe important question is how people process probabilistic information, not whether they process it in accordance with a normative model that we never should have expected them to be capable of following. Experience is not the cure, as widely thought, to problems with utilizing base rate information.


Author(s):  
Ulf-Dietrich Reips ◽  
Michael R. Waldmann

Abstract. In three experiments we investigated whether two procedures of acquiring knowledge about the same causal structure, predictive learning (from causes to effects) versus diagnostic learning (from effects to causes), would lead to different base-rate use in diagnostic judgments. Results showed that learners are capable of incorporating base-rate information in their judgments regardless of the direction in which the causal structure is learned. However, this only holds true for relatively simple scenarios. When complexity was increased, base rates were only used after diagnostic learning, but were largely neglected after predictive learning. It could be shown that this asymmetry is not due to a failure of encoding base rates in predictive learning because participants in all conditions were fairly good at reporting them. The findings present challenges for all theories of causal learning.


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