Pseudocontingencies: flexible contingency inferences from baserates
Humans are evidently able to learn contingencies from the co-occurrence of cuesand outcomes. But how do humans judge contingencies when observations of cue andoutcome are learned on different occasions? The pseudocontingency frameworkproposes that humans rely on base-rate correlations across context...
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2022
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| In: |
Judgment and decision making
Year: 2022, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, Pages: 400-424 |
| ISSN: | 1930-2975 |
| DOI: | 10.1017/S1930297500009165 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1930297500009165 Verlag, kostenfrei, Volltext: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/pseudocontingencies-flexible-contingency-inferences-from-base-rates/789E219684FAFA31839B088112670E66 
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| Author Notes: | Tobias Vogel, Moritz Ingendahl, Linda McCaughey |
| Summary: | Humans are evidently able to learn contingencies from the co-occurrence of cuesand outcomes. But how do humans judge contingencies when observations of cue andoutcome are learned on different occasions? The pseudocontingency frameworkproposes that humans rely on base-rate correlations across contexts, that is,whether outcome base rates increase or decrease with cue base rates. Here, weelaborate on an alternative mechanism for pseudocontingencies that exploits baserate information within contexts. In two experiments, cue and outcome base ratesvaried across four contexts, but the correlation by base rates was kept constantat zero. In some contexts, cue and outcome base rates were aligned (e.g., cueand outcome base rates were both high). In other contexts, cue and outcome baserates were misaligned (e.g., cue base rate was high, but outcome base rate waslow). Judged contingencies were more positive for contexts in which cue andoutcome base rates were aligned than in contexts in which cue and outcome baserates were misaligned. Our findings indicate that people use the alignment ofbase rates to infer contingencies conditional on the context. As such, they lendsupport to the pseudocontingency framework, which predicts that decision makersrely on base rates to approximate contingencies. However, they challengeprevious conceptions of pseudocontingencies as a uniform inference fromcorrelated base rates. Instead, they suggest that people possess a repertoire ofmultiple contingency inferences that differ with regard to informationalrequirements and areas of applicability. |
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| Item Description: | Online veröffentlicht: 1. Januar 2023 Gesehen am 18.09.2024 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1930-2975 |
| DOI: | 10.1017/S1930297500009165 |