Learning the relationship between smoking, drinking alcohol and the risk of esophageal cancer.
This study examined the effect of outcome feedback on learning the multiplicative relationship between daily intakes of tobacco and alcohol, and the risk of esophageal cancer. In the first of two experiments, 65 French adults judged the risk of esophageal cancer associated with combinations of five levels of intake of tobacco and five of wine. They made these judgments both before and after learning sessions in which they were shown the actual risk for each vignette. In the second experiment, 35 French adults underwent the same testing and learning, and were re-tested twice 1 month later. The study hypotheses were supported. First, prior to the learning sessions, the participants used a subadditive rule to combine the perceived risk of esophageal cancer from smoking and drinking. Second, they learned after only one training session to change to the multiplicative rule that is consistent with epidemiological data. Third, this learning persisted for 1 month. This methodology may prove useful in correcting people's underestimation of their health risks.
Laboratoire Cognition et Decision, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Tours, France.
Sylvie
S
Bonnin-Scaon
Peggy
P
Lafon
Gérard
G
Chasseigne
Etienne
E
Mullet
Paul Clay
PC
Sorum
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking / Q000009:adverse effects*; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004938:Esophageal Neoplasms / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D005602:France / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects*