Decision Making and Information Processing under Various Uncertainty Conditions

摘要

Seven experiments were conducted in the area of decision making and information processing under conditions of uncertainty. Several different experimental tasks were used, all of which presented the subject with multiple independent sources of information regarding the likelihood that some event would occur. The input was a probabilistic estimate, and the problems had no correct answers. Study I used Air Force pilots as subjects. All other studies used undergraduate college students. The independent variables included the number of inputs, the reliability of the inputs, the effects of discrepant (i.e., outlying) inputs, the format of the problem, and the time available to respond. All tasks and subsequent analyses were non-Bayesian, yielding both normative and idiographic information. The subject's varied somewhat with each study but basically was to indicate which event was most likely to occur or to make an estimate of the likelihood of a given event. The results of these studies indicated no significant differences between F-16 pilots and student pilots in their use of averaging as the predominant strategy chosen. The effects of unreliable feedback were studied in an information seeking diagnostic task. The results indicated that when the post decision feedback was unreliable, the consistency of subsequent decision-making patterns was disrupted. The effects of information reliability were equivocal in that sometimes unreliable information was incorporated into the decision making processes in predictable patterns, and in other instances, the information labelled as unreliable was simply ignored.