Knowing and Making

DraftFCB's Institute of Decision Making is at the SJDM conference too, and tweeting on tag #SJDM if you want to keep up with some of the interesting research results in real time. Today's highlights for me were: Martin Hilbert of USC has built an information processing model which can potentially explain seven different cognitive biases. In the model, external signals are stored in memory; and then retrieved again when required to make a decision. Assume that the channels into and out of memory are subject to random noise, and then place the following two constraints on the noise: first, that there is less noise than signal (i.e. our beliefs are more likely to be close to reality than not) and second, that the noise is symmetrically distributed (unbiased). From these assumptions, we can derive Bayesian likelihood, placement bias, subadditivity, hard-easy, overconfidence and conservatism effects. Martin also predicts a seventh bias which has not yet been observed, which h...

In St Louis for the SJDM conference and the first event is a very interesting 2-hour precis of the career, contribution and personality of Sarah Lichtenstein. I hadn't realised she (and her long-term collaborator Paul Slovic) had such a critical influence on the development of the Judgment and Decision-Making field. I've come across her work before, of course - if you have read much in this field you are unlikely to have avoided her. But I often read and remember a result without taking note of who was responsible for it, and I've noted many of the key experiments and theories that she and Slovic carried out, without realising they all came from the same team. I'm not sure whether the tribute was due to some particular occasion or anniversary, but you'll be pleased to hear she is still alive and well, as is Slovic and the several other pivotal researchers who spoke about her work. Slovic, John Payne, Chris Hsee, Eric Johnson, Elke Weber, Robin Gregory, Ellen P...

I'm attending the SJDM conference in St Louis this weekend; and will be in New York from Wednesday afternoon until Friday afternoon. I would quite enjoy meeting and chatting with any US-based readers, either in NYC or at the conference. If you fancy meeting up, post a comment here or email me.