Titre
Natural frequencies improve Bayesian reasoning in simple and complex inference tasks
Type
article
Institution
UNIL/CHUV/Unisanté + institutions partenaires
Périodique
Auteur(s)
Hoffrage, U.
Auteure/Auteur
Krauss, S.
Auteure/Auteur
Martignon, L.
Auteure/Auteur
Gigerenzer, G.
Auteure/Auteur
Liens vers les personnes
Liens vers les unités
ISSN
1664-1078
Statut éditorial
Publié
Date de publication
2015-10
Volume
6
Numéro
1473
Première page
1
Dernière page/numéro d’article
14
Peer-reviewed
Oui
Langue
anglais
Résumé
Representing statistical information in terms of natural frequencies rather than probabilities improves performance in Bayesian inference tasks. This beneficial effect of natural frequencies has been demonstrated in a variety of applied domains such as medicine, law, and education. Yet all the research and applications so far have been limited to situations where one dichotomous cue is used to infer which of two hypotheses is true. Real-life applications, however, often involve situations where cues (e.g., medical tests) have more than one value, where more than two hypotheses (e.g., diseases) are considered, or where more than one cue is available. In Study 1, we show that natural frequencies, compared to information stated in terms of probabilities, consistently increase the proportion of Bayesian inferences made by medical students in four conditions-three cue values, three hypotheses, two cues, or three cues-by an average of 37 percentage points. In Study 2, we show that teaching natural frequencies for simple tasks with one dichotomous cue and two hypotheses leads to a transfer of learning to complex tasks with three cue values and two cues, with a proportion of 40 and 81% correct inferences, respectively. Thus, natural frequencies facilitate Bayesian reasoning in a much broader class of situations than previously thought.
PID Serval
serval:BIB_371FC43292E7
Open Access
Oui
Date de création
2016-04-01T14:06:16.679Z
Date de création dans IRIS
2025-05-20T15:32:32Z
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Nom
BIB_371FC43292E7.P001.pdf
Version du manuscrit
published
Taille
466.6 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
PID Serval
serval:BIB_371FC43292E7.P001
URN
urn:nbn:ch:serval-BIB_371FC43292E76
Somme de contrôle
(MD5):b26c8635473e3ff6ac9d2c220eb77c13