Affective and Cognitive Factors Influencing Sensitivity to Probabilistic Information

Abstract

In study 1 different groups of female students were randomly assigned to one of four probabilistic information formats. Five different levels of probability of a genetic disease in an unborn child were presented to participants (within-subject factor). After the presentation of the probability level, participants were requested to indicate the acceptable level of pain they would tolerate to avoid the disease (in their unborn child), their subjective evaluation of the disease risk, and their subjective evaluation of being worried by this risk. The results of study 1 confirmed the hypothesis that an experience-based probability format decreases the subjective sense of worry about the disease, thus, presumably, weakening the tendency to overrate the probability of rare events. Study 2 showed that for the emotionally laden stimuli, the experience-based probability format resulted in higher sensitivity to probability variations than other formats of probabilistic information. These advantages of the experience-based probability format are interpreted in terms of two systems of information processing: the rational deliberative versus the affective experiential and the principle of stimulus-response compatibility.

Shared Medical Decision Making in Lung Cancer Screening

“…Tyszka and Sawicki (14) used a similar approach, but showed participants familiar images (babies’ faces). In this study, we showed pictures of LDCT scans since these are the direct results of the screening process.…”

“…However, the present images were certainly less familiar than baby faces and may not have conveyed the meaning we intended. Although images can arouse greater emotional meaning than text (or numbers) (14, 25) and this greater arousal can promote greater learning (26), our unfamiliar scans may not have done so. Alternatively, the complex images may simply have increased the cognitive burden on participants and reduced their overall comprehension of the situation, only part of which was captured by our knowledge items (27).…”

“…It is possible that a simpler experienced condition may have led to different results. In addition, most previous experiments have required participants to actively sample from a baseline distribution as many times as they wished, whereas our task, like the one used by Tyszka and Sawicki (14), forced participants to view a single random distribution of all possible events, thus ensuring that each participant viewed the expected number of each outcome.…”

“…Conversely, Tyszka and Sawicki (14) compared the impact of descriptive and experienced-based probability formats in a healthcare scenario. They asked female students to consider prenatal genetic testing, where they experienced risk by viewing a series of photographs of children with and without Down’s Syndrome.…”

Zniekształcanie prawdopodobieństw w decyzjach z ryzykiem

“…Podział ten skupia uwagę badaczy w ostatniej dekadzie. Mówi się tu o decyzjach z opisu i decyzjach bazujących na doświadczeniu (Hertwig i in., 2004;Hau i in., 2008;Rakow i Rahim, 2010;Ungemach i in., 2009;Tyszka i Sawicki, 2011;Hertwig, 2012). W przypadku tych pierwszych informacje o prawdopodobieństwie wyników opcji ryzykownej (najczęściej loterii pieniężnej) są opisywane numerycznie (za pomocą %, ułamków, częstości itp.…”