Representation facilitates reasoning: what natural frequencies are and what they are not

Details

Serval ID
serval:BIB_84A119CF3F61
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Title
Representation facilitates reasoning: what natural frequencies are and what they are not
Journal
Cognition
Author(s)
Hoffrage U., Gigerenzer G., Krauss S., Martignon L.
ISSN
0010-0277
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2002
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Volume
84
Number
3
Pages
343-352
Language
english
Abstract
A good representation can be crucial for finding the solution to a problem. Gigerenzer and Hoffrage (Psychol. Rev. 102 (1995) 684; Psychol. Rev. 106 (1999) 425) have shown that representations in terms of natural frequencies, rather than conditional probabilities, facilitate the computation of a cause's probability (or frequency) given an effect – a problem that is usually referred to as Bayesian reasoning. They also have shown that normalized frequencies – which are not natural frequencies – do not lead to computational facilitation, and consequently, do not enhance people's performance. Here, we correct two misconceptions propagated in recent work (Cognition 77 (2000) 197; Cognition 78 (2001) 247; Psychol. Rev. 106 (1999) 62; Organ. Behav. Hum. Decision Process. 82 (2000) 217): normalized frequencies have been mistaken for natural frequencies and, as a consequence, “nested sets” and the “subset principle” have been proposed as new explanations. These new terms, however, are nothing more than vague labels for the basic properties of natural frequencies.
Keywords
Bayesian inference, Probability judgements, Representation of information, Natural frequencies
Web of science
Create date
24/02/2009 15:34
Last modification date
20/08/2019 15:44
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