HUMAN PROCESSING OF EQUIVOCAL INFORMATION

Abstract

This report contains a series of studies investigating the abilities of subjects to revise probability estimates on the basis of new information. These studies show that subjects' probability estimates are reliable, but deviate considerably from posterior probabilities calculated from Bayes's theorem. These deviations are almost always in the conservative direction, i.e., low Bayesian probabilities are overestimated, and high ones are underestimated. Only when each datum is very ambiguous do subjects' estimates become more extreme than Bayesian probabilities. Further, when subjects are asked to give 90% or 50% credible intervals of a posterior probability distribution, their estimates are wider than Bayesian credible intervals. This finding of conservatism has led to the design of a man-computer system that should minimize the effects of human shortcomings in making diagnoses.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 1965
Accession Number
AD0613949

Entities

People

  • Ward Edwards

Organizations

  • University of Michigan

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • C4I
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Air Force
  • Computational Science
  • Control Systems
  • Data Science
  • Impact Point
  • Information Processing
  • Information Retrieval
  • Information Science
  • Probability
  • Probability Distributions
  • Psychology
  • Radar
  • Standards
  • Statistics
  • Students
  • Theorems

Readers

  • Regression Analysis.
  • Statistical inference.
  • Team-Based Human-Centered Cognitive Task Decision Making and Information Performance.

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Bayesian Inference