Abstract
Abstract
Humans are evidently able to learn contingencies from the co-occurrence
of cues and outcomes. But how do humans judge contingencies when
observations of cue and outcome are learned on different occasions? The
pseudocontingency framework proposes that humans rely on base-rate
correlations across contexts, that is, whether outcome base rates increase
or decrease with cue base rates. Here, we elaborate on an alternative
mechanism for pseudocontingencies that exploits base rate information within
contexts. In two experiments, cue and outcome base rates varied across four
contexts, but the correlation by base rates was kept constant at zero. In
some contexts, cue and outcome base rates were aligned (e.g., cue and
outcome base rates were both high). In other contexts, cue and outcome base
rates were misaligned (e.g., cue base rate was high, but outcome base rate
was low). Judged contingencies were more positive for contexts in which cue
and outcome base rates were aligned than in contexts in which cue and
outcome base rates were misaligned. Our findings indicate that people use
the alignment of base rates to infer contingencies conditional on the
context. As such, they lend support to the pseudocontingency framework,
which predicts that decision makers rely on base rates to approximate
contingencies. However, they challenge previous conceptions of
pseudocontingencies as a uniform inference from correlated base rates.
Instead, they suggest that people possess a repertoire of multiple
contingency inferences that differ with regard to informational requirements
and areas of applicability.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
Economics and Econometrics,Applied Psychology,General Decision Sciences
Cited by
1 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献