Learning to commit or avoid the base-rate error.
When predicting an event, people neglect overall frequencies (base rates) of various possibilities. We have previously shown that this base-rate occurs not only with word problems, but also in a procedure with repeated trials: a sample cue followed by two choice options, one of which the subject must choose, with feedback regarding the correctness of the choice. Perhaps this base-rate error depends on people's histories of matching physically similar items. In support of this suggestions, we begin by showing that the base-rate error is eliminated with physically unrelated items. We then show that when the relation between items is again arbitrary, but is a relation that subjects already know, the error reappears. Finally we show that teaching subjects new arbitrary relations reintroduces the error in later testing. These experiments demonstrate a fundamental base-rate error dependent on learned relationships without interference from re-existing associations between cues and options, predictions may be made more optimally.
Goodie
A S
AS
Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla 92093, USA.
Fantino
E
E
D003210:Concept Formation; D003463:Cues; D006801:Humans; D011337:Probability Learning; D011340:Problem Solving