Order effects in human belief revision (original) (raw)
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Human belief revision and the order effect
2000
Abstract The order effect, a phenomenon in which the final belief is significantly affected by the temporal order of information presentation, is a robust empirical finding in human belief revision. This paper investigates how order effects occur, on the basis that human belief has a coherence foundation and a probability/confidence distinction. Both the experimental results and the UEcho modeling suggest that confidence plays an important role in human belief revision.
Order effects in belief updating: The belief-adjustment model
Cognitive Psychology, 1992
Much literature attests to the existence of order effects in the updating of beliefs. However, under what conditions do primacy, recency, or no order effects occur? This paper presents a theory of belief updating that explicitly accounts for order-effect phenomena as arising from the interaction of information-processing strategies and task characteristics. Key task variables identified are complexity of the stimuli, length of the series of evidence items, and response mode (Step-by-
Order effects in belief updating with consistent and inconsistent evidence
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 1993
The current study tests for the presence of differential order effects in evaluation tasks with consistent and inconsistent evidence as predicted by the Hogarth and Einhorn (1992) belief-adjustment model. The results, based on both betweensubjects and within-subjects experiments, demonstrate that there were significant recency effects with inconsistent evidence as predicted, larger recency effects when the inconsistent evidence was farther apart in subjective value as predicted, and significant recency effects even when subjects were given training designed to both help them understand the task as completely as possible and to be better able to assess the pieces of evidence. By including a within-subjects design, we were able to demonstrate that the difference in subjective value between two pieces of evidence is the primary factor influencing the magnitude of the recency effect, regardless of whether the evidence is consistent or inconsistent. This latter finding is unique and contrary to previous research and theory.
Learning from examples does not prevent order effects in belief revision
Thinking & Reasoning, 2010
A common finding is that information order influences belief revision (e.g., Hogarth & Einhorn, 1992). We tested personal experience as a possible mitigator. In three experiments participants experienced the probabilistic relationship between pieces of information and object category through a series of trials where they assigned objects (planes) into one of two possible categories (hostile or commercial) given two sequentially presented pieces of probabilistic information (route and ID), and then they had to indicate their belief about the object category before feedback. The results generally confirm the predictions from the Hogarth and Einhorn model. Participants showed a recency effect in their belief revision. Extending previous model evaluations the results indicate that the model predictions also hold for classification decisions, and for pieces of information that vary in their diagnostic values. Personal experience does not appear to prevent order effects in classification decisions based on sequentially presented pieces of information and in belief revision.
The Effects of Belief Change on Prior and Consequent Beliefs
1979
The° effect of certain methodological changes on the fit of the Wyer subjective probability model and the effect of belief change,on cognitive structure were investigated. Using 1 syllogistically-related pioposition sets of the form "A," "If A then *
Belief Revision and Uncertain Reasoning
When a new piece of information contradicts a currently held belief, one has to modify the set of beliefs in order to restore its consistency. In the case where it is necessary to give up a belief, some of them are less likely to be abandoned than others. The concept of epistemic entrenchment is used by some AI approaches to explain this fact based on formal properties of the belief set (e. g. , transitivity). Two experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that contrary to such views, (i) belief is naturally represented by degrees rather than in an all-or-nothing manner, (ii) entrenchment is primarily a matter of content and not only a matter of form, and (iii) consequently prior degree of belief is a powerful factor of change. The two experiments used Elio and Pelletier's (1997) paradigm in which participants were presented with full simple deductive arguments whose conclusion was denied, following which they were asked to decide which premise to revise. Belief revision 3 Belief Revision and Uncertain Reasoning Changing belief is a pervasive mental activity. It occurs when the course of events does not meet the individual's expectations, or when indisputable facts run counter to the individual's anticipations. It also occurs during communication (e. g. , upon being convinced by one's interlocutor), in learning, in problem solving when new data transform the problem space, etc. This work addresses belief change by asking, How does an individual react when (s)he receives new information that contradicts some logical entailment of his/her current beliefs? More precisely, consider an individual
Individuals often revise their belief in conditional relations when faced with contradictory evidence. However, individuals' beliefs about the reliability of particular sources may influence their acceptance of such evidence. In three experiments, we examined effects of source credibility on belief revision. Participants were presented with a description of a mechanical system comprised of conditional relations with either uniform or randomly alternating components. Next, participants received a contradictory observation from a reliable, unreliable, or neutral source. When evidence came from an unreliable source, participants often failed to revise the conditional belief, regardless of the design of the system.
2010
One of the oldest and most reliable findings regarding human inference is that the order of evidence affects the final judgment. These order effects are non-Bayesian by nature and are difficult to explain by classical probability models. We use the empirical results of two jury decision-making experiments to compare two different models of human belief updating: the belief-adjustment model and the quantum inference model. We also provide evidence to suggest the belief-adjustment model has limited predictive power when accounting for tasks involving extreme evidence whereas the quantum inference model does not.