The systematic biases seen in people's probability judgments are typically taken as evidence that people do not reason about probability using the rules of probability theory, but instead use heuristics which sometimes yield reasonable judgments and sometimes systematic biases. This view has had a major impact in economics, law, medicine, and other fields; indeed, the idea that people cannot reason with probabilities has become a widespread truism. We present a simple alternative to this view, where people reason about probability according to probability theory but are subject to random variation or noise in the reasoning process. In this account the effect of noise is cancelled for some probabilistic expressions:analysing data from two experiments we find that, for these expressions, people's probability judgments are strikingly close to those required by probability theory. For other expressions this account produces systematic deviations in probability estimates. These deviations explain four reliable biases in human probabilistic reasoning (conservatism, subadditivity, conjunction and disjunction fallacies). These results suggest that people's probability judgments embody the rules of probability theory, and that biases in those judgments are due to the effects of random noise.

An exterior derivative, inner derivation, and Lie derivative are introduced on the quantum group GL q (N ). SL q (N ) is then obtained by constructing matrices with determinant unity, and the induced calculus is found.

A common view in current psychology is that people estimate probabilities using various 'heuristics' or rules of thumb that do not follow the normative rules of probability theory. We present a model where people estimate conditional probabilities such as P(A|B) (the probability of A given that B has occurred) by a process that follows standard frequentist probability theory but is subject to random noise. This model accounts for various results from previous studies of conditional probability judgment. This model predicts that people's conditional probability judgments will agree with a series of fundamental identities in probability theory whose form cancels the effect of noise, while deviating from probability theory in other expressions whose form does not allow such cancellation. Two experiments strongly confirm these predictions, with people's estimates on average agreeing with probability theory for the noise-cancelling identities, but deviating from probability theory (in just the way predicted by the model) for other identities. This new model subsumes an earlier model of unconditional or 'direct' probability judgment which explains a number of systematic biases seen in direct probability judgment (Costello & Watts, 2014). This model may thus provide a fully general account of the mechanisms by which people estimate probabilities.

A bicovariant calculus of differential operators on a quantum group is constructed in a natural way, using invariant maps from Fun(G q ) to U q g , given by elements of the pure braid group. These operators -the 'reflection matrix' Y ≡ L + SL − being a special case -generate algebras that linearly close under adjoint actions, i.e. they form generalized Lie algebras. We establish the connection between the Hopf algebra formulation of the calculus and a formulation in compact matrix form which is quite powerful for actual computations and as applications we find the quantum determinant and an orthogonality relation for Y in SO q (N ).