title: Introduction to the special section on the use of computers for making judgments and decisions.
abstract: Computers have the potential to greatly increase the accuracy of judgments and decisions that are made in the area of psychological assessment. The validity of present-day computer programs are described in the first 2 articles of this Special Section. Both computer-based test interpretation programs and mechanical prediction rules (e.g., statistical prediction rules) are described. Limitations of present-day computer programs are described in the 3rd article along with methodological recommendations for building more powerful rules. In the 4th article, a statistical analysis (neural network modeling) is described that may allow us to build better rules.
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Health, Pittsburgh Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Pennsylvania 15206-1297, USA.
authors.forename: H N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Garb
mesh_terms: D003658:Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted; D006801:Humans; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012984:Software