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Implications of real-world distributions and the conversation game for studies of human probability judgments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2007

John C. Thomas
Affiliation:
T. J. Watson Research Center, IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598. jcthomas@us.ibm.comhttp://www.truthtable.com

Abstract

Subjects in experiments use real-life strategies that differ significantly from those assumed by experimenters. First, true randomness is rare in both natural and constructed environments. Second, communication follows conventions which depend on the game-theoretic aspects of situations. Third, in the common rhetorical stance of storytelling, people do not tell about the representative but about unusual, exceptional, and rare cases.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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