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Sensitivity to Evidential Dependencies in Judgments Under Uncertainty
Author(s) -
Xie Belinda,
Hayes Brett
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.498
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1551-6709
pISSN - 0364-0213
DOI - 10.1111/cogs.13144
Subject(s) - weighting , psychology , social psychology , value (mathematics) , bayesian probability , sensitivity (control systems) , task (project management) , bayesian inference , statistics , mathematics , medicine , management , electronic engineering , engineering , economics , radiology
According to Bayesian models of judgment, testimony from independent informants has more evidential value than dependent testimony. Three experiments investigated learners' sensitivity to this distinction. Each experiment used a social version of the balls‐and‐urns task, in which participants judged which of two urns was the most likely source of evidence presented by multiple informants. Informants either provided independent testimony based solely on their own observations or dependent‐sequential testimony that considered the testimonies of previous informants. Although participants updated their beliefs with additional evidence, this updating was generally insensitive to evidential dependency (Experiments 1 and 2). A notable exception was when individuals were separated according to their beliefs about the relative value of independent and sequential evidence. Those who viewed independent evidence as having greater value subsequently gave more weight to independent testimony in the balls‐and‐urns task (Experiment 3), in line with the predictions of a Bayesian model. Our findings suggest that only a minority of individuals conform to Bayesian predictions in the relative weighting of independent and dependent evidence in judgments under uncertainty.