Partitive Formulation of Information in Probabilistic Problems: Beyond Heuristics and Frequency Format Explanations

The “vanishing” of the disjunction effect by sensible procrastination

“…Accordingly, analysis of the discourse is the proper methodology for studying reasoning. Numerous recent studies (Bagassi and Macchi 2006a, b;Dulany and Hilton 1991;Sperber et al 1995;Politzer and Macchi 2000;Macchi 2000;Mosconi and Macchi 2001;Van der Henst et al 2002) have shown the importance of the pragmatic approach to the study of thinking and reasoning, from problem solving, conditional reasoning and deductive reasoning to probabilistic reasoning.…”

Sets or frequencies? How to help people solve conditional probability problems

“…Some studies seem to support the natural frequency hypothesis (Cosmides & Tooby, 1996;Gigerenzer & Hoffrage, 1995;Krä mer & Gigerenzer, 2005;Zhu & Gigerenzer, 2006); others seem to support the nested-set hypothesis (Evans et al, 2000;Girotto & Gonzalez, 2001;Macchi, 2000;Mellers & McGraw, 1999;Sloman et al, 2003;Yamagishi, 2003). The resolution of this dispute is important because, besides increasing the understanding of this phenomenon, it may yield practical consequences regarding how to teach probability theory.…”

Sample representativeness affects whether judgments are influenced by base rate or sample size

“…Such natural frequency formats simplify the conditional probability computation and make set-subset relationships clear which results in greater use of base rates (Evans, Handley, Perham, Over, & Thompson, 2000;Fiedler, Brinkmann, Betsch, & Wild, 2000;Girotto & Gonzalez, 2001;Macchi, 2000;Neace, Michaud, Bolling, Deer, & Zecevic, 2008;Yamagishi, 2003).…”