Ambiguities and Unstated Assumptions in Probabilistic Reasoning

Psychological Bulletin

Volumn 122, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 410-433

  Nickerson, Raymond S ^a  

^a TUFTS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 2242494558     PISSN: 00332909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1037//0033-2909.120.3.410     Document Type: Article

References (101)

1. Allais, M. (1990). Criticism of the postulates and axioms of the American School. In P. K. Moser (Ed.), Rationality in action: Contemporary approaches (pp. 113-139). New York: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published in 1979)
2. Alloy, L. B., & Abramson, L. Y. (1979). Judgment of contingency in depressed and nondepressed students: Sadder but wiser? Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 108, 441-485.
3. Alloy, L. B., & Tabachnik, N. (1984). Assessment of covariation by humans and by animals: The joint influence of prior expectations and current situational information. Psychological Review, 91, 112-149.
4. Bakan, D. (1966). The test of significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 66, 1-29.
5. Bar-Hillel, M. A. (1980). The base-rate fallacy in probability judgments. Acta Psychologica, 44, 211-233.
6. Bar-Hillel, M. A., & Falk, R. (1982). Some teasers concerning conditional probabilities. Cognition, 11, 109-122.
7. Bar-Hillel, M., & Fischhoff, B. (1981). When do base rates affect predictions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 41, 671-680.
8. Baron, J. (1985). Rationality and intelligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
9. Baron, J. (1988). Thinking and deciding. New York: Cambridge University Press.
10. Barrows, H. S., Feightner, J. W., Neufeld, V. R., & Norman, G. R. (1978). Analysis of the clinical methods of medical students and physicians. Hamilton, Ontario, Canada: McMaster University, School of Medicine.
11. Barrows, H. S., Norman, G. R., Neufeld, V. R., & Feightner, J. W. (1977). Studies of the clinical reasoning process of medical students and physicians. In Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference on Research in Medical Education. Washington, DC: Association of American Medical Colleges.
12. Borgida, E., & Brekke, N. (1981). New directions in attribution research (Vol. 5). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
13. Camerer, C. (1988). Illusory correlations in perceptions and predictions of organizational traits. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1, 77-94.
14. Caroll, J. S. (1978). The effect of imagining an event on expectations for the event: An interpretation in terms of the availability heuristic. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 14, 88-96.
15. Chapman, L. J., & Chapman, J. P. (1967). Genesis of popular but erroneous psychodiagnostic observations. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 72, 193-204.
16. Chapman, L. J., & Chapman, J. P. (1969). Illusory correlation as an obstacle to the use of valid psychodiagnostic signs. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 74, 271-280.
17. Christensen-Szalanski, J. J., & Beach, L. R. (1982). Experience and the base rate fallacy. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 29, 270-278.
18. Christensen-Szalanski, J. J., & Bushyhead, J. B. (1988). Physicians' use of probabilistic information in a real clinical setting. In J. Dowie & A. Elstein (Eds.), Professional judgment. A reader in clinical decision making (pp. 360-373). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1981)
19. Clark, H. H., & Clark, E. V. (1977). Psychology and language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
20. Cohen, J. (1994). The earth is round (p < .05). American Psychologist, 49, 997-1003.
21. Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1990, August). Is the mind a frequentist? Paper presented at the second annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, Los Angeles, CA.
22. Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1996). Are humans good intuitive statisticians after all? Rethinking some conclusions from the literature on judgment under uncertainty. Cognition, 58, 1-73.
23. Crocker, J. (1981). Judgment of covariation by social perceivers. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 272-292.
24. Dube-Rioux, L., & Russo, J. E. (1988). An availability bias in professional judgment. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1, 223-237.
25. Einhorn, H. J., & Hogarth, R. M. (1981). Behavioral decision theory: Processes of judgment and choice. Annual Review of Psychology, 32, 53-88.
26. Elstein, A. S., Shulman, L. S., & Sprafka, S. A. (1978). Medical problem solving: An analysis of clinical reasoning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
27. Evans, J. St. B. T. (1989). Bias in human reasoning: Causes and consequences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
28. Falk, R. (1992). A closer look at the probabilities of the notorious three prisoners. Cognition, 43, 197-223.
29. Feller, W. (1957). An introduction to probability theory and its applications (Vol. 1, 2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
30. Feller, W. (1966). An introduction to probability theory and its applications (Vol. 2). New York: Wiley.
31. Fiedler, K. (1988). The dependence of the conjunction fallacy on subtle linguistic factors. Psychological Research, 50, 123-129.
32. Fischhoff, B., Slovic, P., & Lichtenstein, S. (1978). Fault trees: Sensitivity of estimated failure probabilities to problem representations. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 4, 330-344.
33. Gardner, M. (1959). The Scientific American book of mathematical puzzles and diversions. New York: Simon & Schuster.
34. Gardner, M. (1961). The second Scientific American book of mathematical puzzles and diversions. New York: Simon & Schuster.
35. Georges, J. P., & Craine, T. V. (1995, March/April). Generalizing Monty's dilemma. Quantum, pp. 16-21.
36. Gettys, C. G., Fisher, S. D., & Mehle, T. (1978). Hypothesis generation and plausibility assessment (Annual Rep. %R 15-10-78). University of Oklahoma, Norman Decision Processes Laboratory.
37. Gigerenzer, G. (1991). How to make cognitive illusions disappear: Beyond "heuristics and biases." In W. Stroebe & M. Hewstone (Eds.), European review of social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 83-115). London: Wiley.
38. Gigerenzer, G. (1994). Why the distinction between single-event probabilities and frequencies is important for psychology (and vice versa). In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective probability (pp. 129-161). New York: Wiley.
39. Gigerenzer, G., Hell, W., & Blank, H. (1988). Presentation and content: The use of base rates as a continuous variable. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 513-525.
40. Gigerenzer, G., Hoffrage, U., & Kleinbölting, H. (1991). Probabilistic mental models: A Brunswikian theory of confidence. Psychological Review, 98, 506-528.
41. Gigerenzer, G., & Murray, D. J. (1987). Cognition as intuitive statistics. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
42. Gigerenzer, G., Swijtink, Z., Porter, T., Daston, L., Beatty, J., & Krüger, L. (1989). The empire of chance: How probability changed science and everyday life. New York: Cambridge University Press.
43. Gillman, L. (1992). The car and the goats. American Mathematical Monthly, 99, 3-7.
44. Gilovich, T. (1991). How we know what isn't so: The fallibility of human reason in everyday life. New York: Free Press.
45. Golding, S. L., & Rorer, L. G. (1972). Illusory correlation and subjective judgement. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 80, 249-260.
46. Good, I. J. (1983). Good thinking: The foundations of probability and its applications. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
47. Gregory, W. L., Cialdini, R. B., & Carpenter, K. M. (1982). Self-relevant scenarios as mediators of likelihood estimates and compliance: Does imagining make it so? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 43, 89-99.
48. Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. I. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics. Vol. 3: Speech acts (pp. 41-58). New York: Seminar Press.
49. Hamilton, D. L. (1979). A cognitive attributional analysis of stereotyping. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 12, pp. 53-84). New York: Academic Press.
50. Hammerton, M. (1973). A case of radical probability estimation. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 101, 252-254.
51. Hansen, R. D., & Donoghue, J. M. (1977). The power of consensus: Information derived from one's own behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 294-302.
52. Hoch, S. J. (1984). Availability and inference in predictive judgment. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 10, 649-662.
53. Hogarth, R. M. (1981). Beyond discrete biases: Functional and dysfunctional aspects of judgmental heuristics. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 197-217.
54. Hogarth, R. M. (1987). Judgement and choice (2nd ed.). London: Wiley.
55. Jepson, C., Krantz, D. H., & Nisbett, R. E. (1983). Inductive reasoning: Competence or skill? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 6, 94-101.
56. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.). (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
57. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1973). On the psychology of prediction. Psychological Review, 80, 237-251.
58. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). On the study of statistical intuitions. Cognition, 11, 123-141.
59. Koriat, A., Lichtenstein, S., & Fischhoff, B. (1980). Reasons for confidence. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6, 107-118.
60. Landman, J., & Manis, M. (1983). Social cognition: Some historical and theoretical perspectives. Advances in experimental social psychology, 16, 49-123.
61. Lindley, D. V. (1971). Making decisions. London: Wiley.
62. Lord, C. G., Lepper, M. R., & Preston, E. (1984). Considering the opposite: A corrective strategy for social judgment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 47, 1231-1243.
63. Lykken, D. T. (1968). Statistical significance in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 70, 151-159.
64. Lyon, D., & Slovic, P. (1975). On the tendency to ignore base rates when estimating probabilities. ORI Research Bulletin, 15, 1.
65. Lyon, D., & Slovic, P. (1976). Dominance of accuracy information and neglect of base rates in probability estimation. Acta Psychologica, 40, 287-298.
66. Margolis, H. (1987). Patterns, thinking, and cognition: A theory of judgment. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
67. Meehl, P. E. (1967). Theory testing in psychology and physics: A methodological paradox. Philosophy of Science, 34, 103-115.
68. Meehl, P. E., & Rosen, A. (1955). Antecedent probability and the efficiency of psychometric signs, patterns, or cutting scores. Psychological Bulletin, 52, 194-216.
69. Mehle, T., Gettys, C. V., Manning, C., Baca, S., & Fisher, S. (1981). The availability explanation of excessive plausibility assessments. Acta Psychologica, 49, 127-140.
70. Morgan, J. P., Chaganty, N. R., Dahiya, R. C., & Doviak, M. J. (1991a). Let's make a deal: The player's dilemma. The American Statistician, 45, 284-287.
71. Morgan, J. P., Chaganty, N. R., Dahiya, R. C., & Doviak, M. J. (1991b). Rejoinder. The American Statistician, 45, 289.
72. Mosteller, F. (1965). Fifty challenging problems in probability with solutions. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
73. Nisbett, R. E., Borgida, E., Crandall, R., & Reed, H. (1976). Popular induction: Information is not necessarily informative. In J. S. Carroll & J. W. Payne (Eds.), Cognition and social behavior (pp. 113-134). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
74. Nisbett, R. E., Fong, G. T., Lehman, D. R., & Cheng, P. W. (1987, October 30). Teaching reasoning. Science, 238, 625-631.
75. Nisbett, R. E., Krantz, D. H., Jepson, D., & Kunda, Z. (1983). The use of statistical heuristics in everyday inductive reasoning. Psychological Review, 90, 339-363.
76. Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human inference: Strategies and shortcomings of social judgement. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
77. Oakhill, J. V., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1985). Rationality, memory and the search for counterexamples. Cognition, 20, 79-94.
78. Perkins, D. N., Allen, R., & Hafner, J. (1983). Difficulties in everyday reasoning. In W. Maxwell (Ed.), Thinking: The frontier expands. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
79. Perkins, D. N., Farady, M., & Bushey, B. (1991). Everyday reasoning and the roots of intelligence. In J. Voss, D. N. Perkins, & J. Segal (Eds.), Informal reasoning (pp. 83-105). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
80. Piattelli-Palmarini, M. (1994). Inevitable illusions: How mistakes of reason rule our minds. New York: Wiley.
81. Polya, G. (1954). Mathematics and plausible reasoning. Vol. 1: Induction and analogy in mathematics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
82. Rozenboom, W. W. (1960). The fallacy of the null hypothesis significance test. Psychological Bulletin, 57, 416-428.
83. Schlotterbek, M. (1992). Bayesian inference without base rates. Diploma thesis. University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
84. Selvin, S. (1975a). On the Monty Hall problem. The American Statistician, 29, 134.
85. Selvin, S. (1975b). A problem in probability [Letter to the editor]. The American Statistician, 29, 67.
86. Seymann, R. G. (1991). Comment. The American Statistician, 45, 287-288.
87. Shackle, G. L. S. (1955). Uncertainty in economics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
88. Shaughnessy, J. M. (1981). Misconceptions of probability: From systematic errors to systematic experiments and decisions. In A. P. Shulte & J. R. Smart (Eds.), Teaching statistics and probability (pp. 90-100). Reston, VA: National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.
89. Shaughnessy, J. M., & Dick, T. (1991). Monty's dilemma: Should you stick or switch? Mathematics Teacher, 84(4), 252-256.
90. Sherman, S. J., Skov, R. B., Hervits, E. F., & Stock, C. B. (1981). The effects of explaining hypothetical future events: From possibility to probability to actuality and beyond. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 142-158.
91. Shimojo, S., & Ichikawa, S. (1989). Intuitive reasoning about probability: Theoretical and experimental analyses of the "problem of three prisoners." Cognition, 32, 1-24.
92. Simon, H. A. (1957). Models of man: Social and rational. New York: Wiley.
93. Simon, H. A. (1983). Reason in human affairs. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
94. Slovic, P., Fischhoff, B., & Lichtenstein, S. (1976). Cognitive processes and societal risk taking. In J. S. Carroll & J. W. Payne (Eds.), Cognition and social behavior (pp. 165-184). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
95. Smedslund, J. (1963). The concept of correlation in adults. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 4, 165-173.
96. Székely, G. J. (1986). Paradoxes in probability theory and mathematical statistics. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Reidel.
97. Vos Savant, M. (1990a, December 2). Ask Marilyn. Parade Magazine, p. 25.
98. Vos Savant, M. (1990b, September 9). Ask Marilyn. Parade Magazine, p. 15.
99. Vos Savant, M. (1991, February 17). Ask Marilyn. Parade Magazine, p. 12.
100. Wells, G. L., & Harvey, J. H. (1977). Do people use consensus information in making causal attributions? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 279-293.
101. Whitehead, A. N. (1956). Mathematics as an element in the history of thought. In J. R. Newman (Ed.), The world of mathematics (Vol. 1, pp. 402-416). New York: Simon & Schuster.