title: There are at least two kinds of probability matching: evidence from a secondary task.
abstract: Probability matching is a suboptimal behavior that often plagues human decision-making in simple repeated choice tasks. Despite decades of research, recent studies cannot find agreement on what choice strategies lead to probability matching. We propose a solution, showing that two distinct local choice strategies-which make different demands on executive resources-both result in probability-matching behavior on a global level. By placing participants in a simple binary prediction task under dual- versus single-task conditions, we find that individuals with compromised executive resources are driven away from a one-trial-back strategy (utilized by participants with intact executive resources) and towards a strategy that integrates a longer window of past outcomes into the current prediction. Crucially, both groups of participants exhibited probability-matching behavior to the same extent at a global level of analysis. We suggest that these two forms of probability matching are byproducts of the operation of explicit versus implicit systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station A8000, Austin, TX 78712, United States. rotto@mail.utexas.edu
authors.forename: A Ross
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Otto
authors.forename: Eric G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Arthur B
authors.initials: AB
authors.lastname: Markman
mesh_terms: D003071:Cognition; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011336:Probability