The psychology of the Monty Hall problem: discovering psychological mechanisms for solving a tenacious brain teaser.
The Monty Hall problem (or three-door problem) is a famous example of a "cognitive illusion," often used to demonstrate people's resistance and deficiency in dealing with uncertainty. The authors formulated the problem using manipulations in 4 cognitive aspects, namely, natural frequencies, mental models, perspective change, and the less-is-more effect. These manipulations combined led to a significant increase in the proportion of correct answers given by novice participants, largely because of the synergy of frequency-based formulation and perspective change (Experiments 1, 2). In a raining study (Experiment 3) frequency formulation and mental models, but not Bayes's rule training, showed significant positive transfer in solving related problems.
Krauss
Stefan
S
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany. krauss@mpib-berlin.mpg.de
Wang
X T
XT
D000328:Adult; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011340:Problem Solving; D011584:Psychology / Q000379:methods