Foreground:background salience: Explaining the effects of graphical displays on risk avoidance

Stone, Eric R.; Sieck, Winston R.; Bull, Benita E.; Yates, JoAnne; Parks, Stephanie C.; Rush, Carolyn J.

doi:10.1016/s0749-5978(03)00003-7

Cited by 152 publications

(220 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Risk information can be presented either as a ratio (number of people harmed / total number of people at risk of harm) or using graphical formats that highlight the foreground aspect (i.e., numerator) or the background aspect (i.e., denominator). Stone et al (2003) show that graphically highlighting the foreground aspect increases risk perception, but this effect is eliminated or reversed when the background aspect is highlighted. Thus, even when both foreground and background aspects are available, perceptual salience of one aspect changes risk perceptions.…”

Section: Perceptual Saliencementioning

confidence: 95%

“…One manner in which perceptual salience could vary is the graphical format in which information is presented (Stone, Yates, and Parker 1997;Stone et al 2003). Risk information can be presented either as a ratio (number of people harmed / total number of people at risk of harm) or using graphical formats that highlight the foreground aspect (i.e., numerator) or the background aspect (i.e., denominator).…”

Section: Perceptual Saliencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Years, Months, and Days versus 1, 12, and 365: The Influence of Units versus Numbers

Monga

Bagchi

2011

Journal of Consumer Research

101

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Quantitative changes may be conveyed to consumers using small units (e.g., change in delivery time from 7 to 21 days) or large units (1–3 weeks). Numerosity research suggests that changes are magnified by small (vs. large) units because a change from 7 to 21 (vs. 1–3) seems larger. We introduce a reverse effect that we term unitosity: changes are magnified by large (vs. small) units because a change of weeks (vs. days) seems larger. We show that numerosity reverses to unitosity when relative salience shifts from numbers to units (study 1). Then, arguing that numbers (units) represent a low-level (high-level) construal of quantities, we show this reversal when mind-set shifts from concrete to abstract (studies 2–4). These results emerge for several quantities—height of buildings, time of maturity of financial instruments, weight of nutrients, and length of tables—and have significant implications for theory and practice.

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Section: Perceptual Saliencementioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Perceptual Saliencementioning

confidence: 99%

Years, Months, and Days versus 1, 12, and 365: The Influence of Units versus Numbers

Monga

Bagchi

2011

Journal of Consumer Research

101

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“…Probability judgment is particularly difficult because it involves overlapping sets or classes: the class of targets in the numerator (e.g., the number of women who become pregnant after unprotected sex) and the class of total instances in the denominator (e.g., the number of women who become pregnant plus the number who do not become pregnant after unprotected sex). Because of confusion about overlapping sets, people often focus on classes in numerators (or targets) and neglect denominators, a kind of foreground-background salience effect (e.g., Reyna, 1991, in press; Reyna & Mills, in press;Stone et al, 2003). Although large errors in probability judgment can occur because of denominator neglect, especially for doubly embedded conditional probabilities, the errors concern the mechanics of processing rather than fundamental conceptual difficulties.…”

Section: Fuzzy-trace Theory and Risk Takingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk taking under the influence: A fuzzy-trace theory of emotion in adolescence

Rivers

Reyna

Mills

2008

Developmental Review

199

228

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Fuzzy-trace theory explains risky decision making in children, adolescents, and adults, incorporating social and cultural factors as well as differences in impulsivity. Here, we provide an overview of the theory, including support for counterintuitive predictions (e.g., when adolescents "rationally" weigh costs and benefits, risk taking increases, but it decreases when the core gist of a decision is processed). Then, we delineate how emotion shapes adolescent risk taking-from encoding of representations of options, to retrieval of values/principles, to application of those values/principles to representations of options. Our review indicates that: (i) Gist representations often incorporate emotion including valence, arousal, feeling states, and discrete emotions; and (ii) Emotion determines whether gist or verbatim representations are processed. We recommend interventions to reduce unhealthy risk-taking that inculcate stable gist representations, enabling adolescents to identify quickly and automatically danger even when experiencing emotion, which differs sharply from traditional approaches emphasizing deliberation and precise analysis. Keywords adolescence; risk taking; fuzzy-trace theory; decision making; emotion; affect; mood; memory It seems oxymoronic to apply the term "decision making" to describe adolescent risk taking. After all, if adolescents were making decisions, perhaps they would not be getting into so much trouble. Adolescents appear to react rather than decide. But this view of decision making betrays an assumption that mature decision making is cold and deliberative, that it is the result of an intentional, analytical thinking process that eschews emotion (Nisbett & Ross, 1980). We argue just the opposite. Instead of assuming that development progresses from hot intuitive thinking to cold calculation bypassing emotion, we present research showing that intuition is developmentally advanced and that emotion is integral to intuition.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Valerie F. Reyna, Departments of Human Development and Psychology, Cornell University, B44 Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853. Email: vr53@cornell.edu. Phone: (607) 255-9856. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptIn this article, we outline a theory of risk taking in adolescence-fuzzy-trace theory-that is grounded in research on how people represent, retrieve, and process information when they make decisions, and how decision making changes with d...

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“…Tables may not be effective for improving understanding of complex information, but they tend to be liked because they seem more trustworthy and scientific than graphical formats (Johnson and Slovic 1995;Hawley et al 2008). Icon graph formats may improve understanding and be perceived as useful, but undermine behavior change (Stone et al 2003). Relatively little is known about how these formats affect understanding, preferences, and intentions to change behavior in the context of electricity use.…”

Section: Proposed Information Content For Improved Electricity Billsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…understanding may not actually be preferred (Ancker et al 2006;Lipkus and Peters 2009;Miron-Shatz, Hanoch, Graef, and Sagi 2009;Schapira, Nattinger, and McHorney 2001) or even undermine recipients' willingness to implement the presented health recommendations (Stone et al 2003;Weinstein and Sandman 1993). Additionally, relatively little is known about how specific communication features interact with each other or with recipients' ability to understand the presented information (Fagerlin et al 2007;Lipkus 2007;Lipkus and Peters 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceptions of electricity-use communications: effects of information, format, and individual differences

Canfield

Bruin

Wong‐Parodi

2016

Journal of Risk Research

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Electricity bills could be an effective strategy for improving communications about (c) icon graphs. We report on three main findings. First, consumers understood each type of electricity use information the most when it was presented in a table, perhaps because tables facilitate simple point reading. Second, preferences and intentions to save electricity were the strongest for the historical use information, independent of format. Third, individuals with lower energy literacy understood all information less. We discuss implications for designing utility bills that are understandable, perceived as useful, and motivate consumers to save energy.

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Foreground:background salience: Explaining the effects of graphical displays on risk avoidance

Cited by 152 publications

References 24 publications

Years, Months, and Days versus 1, 12, and 365: The Influence of Units versus Numbers

Years, Months, and Days versus 1, 12, and 365: The Influence of Units versus Numbers

Risk taking under the influence: A fuzzy-trace theory of emotion in adolescence

Perceptions of electricity-use communications: effects of information, format, and individual differences

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