bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Comparison of indoor and captive, free-roaming management in golden-headed lion tamarins(Leontopithecus chrysomelas)at Zürich Zoo
Authors: Steinmetz HW , Zingg R , Ossent P , Eulenberger U , Clauss M , Hatt JM
Published: January 2023

Traditional husbandry practices for the public display ofCallitrichidaeinvolve strict separation of animals and public. An important consideration for the evaluation of such management is the occurrence of health problems and potential zoonotic risks. This study compared animal data and veterinary records from a captive, free-roaming population of golden-headed lion tamarins(Leontopithecus chrysomelas)with a population housed under indoor management. The captive, free-roaming group grew significantly faster than the indoor-housed group, as less animals died and offspring were more successfully weaned. No differences in the causes of death were detected between the two husbandry practices. However, bacterial diseases were most common and diagnosed significantly more often under indoor management. This study suggests that the captive, free-roaming management of golden-headed lion tamarins can be conducive to increased reproductive success, improved health and improved welfare. Therefore, current husbandry recommendations for captive, free-roaming conditions were supported by the findings of the present study as a valuable housing practice where health regulations and proper husbandry parameters permit.
Luminance and glare in indoor cattle-handling facilities
Authors: Klinglmair K , Stevens KB , Gregory NG
Published: January 2023

This study examined the sources of glare and range in luminance levels in eleven UK cattle abattoirs, and the effect of reflected glare from a footbath on balking behaviour of cows in a milking parlour. At the abattoirs, the mean luminance levels decreased from 240,000 cd m−2outdoors to 100 cd m−2in the stunning pen. In five of the abattoirs, the luminance of the glare from wet floor surfaces was three times higher than the luminance from the surrounding darker areas, and the luminance of the glare from shiny metal surfaces was ten times higher than the luminance from the adjacent darker areas. In the glare study, frequency of balking increased significantly from 10 to 23% when reflected glare increased from 0 (no lightbulb) to 873 cd m−2(100 W bulb), but significantly fewer animals balked during the afternoon milking than at the morning milking times.
Floor quality and space allowance in intensive beef production: a review
Authors: Wechsler B
Published: January 2023

In intensive beef production in Europe, finishing beef cattle are typically reared in pens with fully slatted floors and low space allowances. These housing conditions were questioned in a report published by the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare in 2001. The report concluded that the welfare of finishing bulls and steers is at risk if they are housed on fully slatted concrete or wooden floors or not provided with adequate floor space. The aim of the present paper is to review and update scientific evidence on the effects of floor quality and space allowance on the welfare of finishing beef cattle. It is shown that the recommendations made by the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare are still valid, and are well supported by studies published over the last 10 years. Furthermore, results of several recent studies testing fully slatted floors with rubber covering indicate that this type of flooring is an acceptable alternative to concrete slats, with positive effects on animal behaviour and leg lesions. Consequently, a phasing-out of housing systems with fully slatted concrete floors is suggested. With respect to floor space, the studies reviewed here support the notion that it is essential to enforce minimum standards resulting in increased space allowances for intensive beef production systems.
Taking the time to assess the effects of remote sensing and tracking devices on animals
Authors: McMahon CR , Collier N , Northfield JK , Glen F
Published: January 2023

The remote monitoring of animal behaviour using telemetry and bio-logging has become popular due to technological advances, falling costs of devices and the need to understand behaviour without causing disturbance to subjects. Over the past three decades thousands of animals have had their movements tracked by these devices; however, attaching devices to streamlined bodies raises concerns about energetic costs and effects on vital rates and the reliability of the data collected (eg survival probability). We encourage researchers to discuss concerns, quantify the possible effects that devices and attachment methods have on subjects and present this work for peer review.
Shelter choice by Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) in the laboratory
Authors: Veillette M , Reebs SG
Published: January 2023

The preference of Syrian hamsters (Mesocricetus auratus) for different in-cage shelters was tested. First, 15 males and 15 females were made to choose between a cage with a shelter and one without. Different shelters were tested consecutively: short (10-cm) or medium (15-cm) pipes made of black acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), 7.6 cm in diameter and open at both ends; and short or medium boxes made of black acrylic panels and open at only one end. The strongest use of the shelter cage for nesting (about 75% of days) was in the case of the medium, open pipe, for both males and females. The strongest use of the shelter itself for nesting was also in the case of the medium open pipe (52% of days). A second experiment gave a choice between pairs of shelters (of seven different types) to 10 males and 10 females. Both sexes nested significantly more in a medium pipe closed at one end than under a wheel, and tended to nest more in that medium, semi-closed pipe than in a medium, open pipe. Also, females tended to nest more in the medium, semi-closed pipe than under an aluminium cover. Other pairings did not yield significant differences. Direct use of the shelters for nesting was rather low, except for the medium, semi-closed pipe (about 50% of days). Semi-closed ABS pipes are inexpensive, easy to clean, and do not interfere with running wheels, and they could be recommended as environmental enrichment for hamsters.
Farm Animal Welfare Committee (FAWC) Opinion on CCTV in slaughterhouses
Authors: Williams NR
Published: January 2023

The UK Farm Animal Welfare Committee (FAWC), an expert committee of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), has published its Opinion on CCTV in Slaughterhouses in response to increasing pressure from lobby groups and others for the introduction of mandatory CCTV use in slaughterhouses.
Genome editing and farmed animal breeding: social and ethical issues
Authors: Nielsen Birte L
Published: January 2023

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has published in December 2021 their most recent report on the social and ethical issues associated with the use of genome editing in farm animal breeding. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is an independent body based in the United Kingdom that examines and advises on ethical issues arising from developments in bioscience and health. The Council is made up of around 15 members and 12 executive staff. It was established by the trustees of the Nuffield Foundation in 1991, is funded jointly by the Nuffield Foundation, the Medical Research Council and Wellcome. One of their terms of reference is to identify and define ethical questions raised by recent developments in biological and medical research that concern, or are likely to concern, the public interest; and the Council reviews the available evidence with a view to report on these matters and to make recommendations relating to policy and practice.
How incumbent politicians respond to the enactment of a programmatic policy: evidence from snow subsidies
Authors: Catalinac Amy , Muraoka Taishi
Published: January 2023

More than 50 studies have examined the programmatic incumbent support hypothesis, which posits that once enacted, programmatic policies increase electoral support for the incumbent. Despite the careful attention to causal inference in this work, empirical findings have been strikingly inconsistent. We make the case that these inconsistent results are likely explained by incumbents' strategic responses to the enactment of a programmatic policy. Specifically, incumbents have good reasons to distribute different amounts of non-programmatic goods to voters who do and do not receive a programmatic policy. To examine this conjecture, we turn to the case of Japan, where municipalities receive allocations of non-programmatic goods and vary in their eligibility for a programmatic policy (a snow subsidy) according to plausibly exogenous factors. Using a geographic regression discontinuity design, we find that municipalities receiving the programmatic policy receive systematicallymorenon-programmatic goods than municipalities that do not.
“Feeling more regret than I would have imagined”: Self-report and behavioral evidence
Authors: Fernandez-Duque Diego , Landers Jessica
Published: January 2023

People tend to overestimate emotional responses to future events. This study examined whether such affective forecasting errors occur for feelings of regret, as measured by self-report and subsequent decision-making. Some participants played a pricing game and lost by a narrow or wide margin, while others were asked to imagine losing by such margins. Participants who experienced a narrow loss reported more regret than those who imagined a narrow loss. Furthermore, those experiencing a narrow loss behaved more cautiously in a subsequent gambling task. Thus, the study provides self-report and behavioral evidence for a reversal of the affective forecasting phenomenon for feelings of regret.
Intuition and affect in risk perception and decision making
Authors: Böhm Gisela , Brun Wibecke
Published: January 2023

Intuition and affect have been neglected topics in the literature on human judgment and decision making for a long time. Judgmental processes involved in risk perception and decision making have traditionally been conceptualized as cognitive in nature, being based upon a rational and deliberate evaluation of the alternatives at hand. This picture started to change in the early 1980s when decision researchers looked beyond rational, deliberate, and cognitive processes and began to investigate intuitive — as opposed to deliberate — and emotional — as opposed to cognitive — aspects of decision making.
Anticipated and experienced emotions in environmental risk perception
Authors: Böhm Gisela , Pfister Hans-Rüdiger
Published: January 2023

Affective forecasting with respect to two environmental risks (ozone depletion, air pollution) was investigated by studying tourists who travelled to either Australia or Bangkok and were thus confronted with one of these risks. We measured anticipated outcome and anticipated emotions before the journey, actually experienced outcome and actually experienced emotions during the journey, and anticipated outcome and emotions concerning a future encounter with the same risk after the journey. Results indicate that tourists underestimate (air pollution) or correctly predict (ozone depletion) both the seriousness of the outcome and their emotional reactions. The relationship between actual outcome and actual emotions is stronger than that between anticipated outcome and anticipated emotions. Furthermore, tourists learn from their travel experience and adjust their anticipations concerning future encounters with the environmental risk. Findings suggest that the domain of environmental risks differs from personal outcomes with respect to the process of affective forecasting.
On the appropriateness of appropriateness judgments: The case of interferon treatment for melanoma
Authors: Ganzach Yoav , Leshno Moshe
Published: January 2023

We compare experts’ judgments of the appropriateness of a treatment (interferon treatment for melanoma) on the basis of important attributes of this disease (thickness, ulceration, lymph node involvement and type of metastases) to a decision analytic model in which the probabilities of deterioration are derived from the medical literature and from epidemiological studies. The comparison is based on what we call the linearity test, which examines whether appropriateness judgments are a linear function of the epidemiological value of p2, the probability of deterioration of the patient condition if he would have received the treatment. This comparison allows for the assessment of the validity of the experts’ judgments under the assumption that the decision analytic model is valid, or alternatively, the assessment of the validity of the decision analytic model under the assumption that the experts’ judgments are valid. Under the former assumption the results indicate that appropriateness judgments are by and large accurate. Under the latter assumption the results support the idea of a constant treatment effect, the idea that efficacy of a treatment is constant over various levels of severity of the disease. Our results also support the idea that experts’ aggregate judgments far exceed individuals’ judgments.
Strategy selection during exploratory behavior: sex differences
Authors: Brandner Catherine
Published: January 2023

This study was designed to assess sex-related differences in the selection of an appropriate strategy when facing novelty. A simple visuo-spatial task was used to investigate exploratory behavior as a specific response to novelty. The exploration task was followed by a visual discrimination task, and the responses were analyzed using signal detection theory.

During exploration women selected a local searching strategy in which the metric distance between what is already known and what is unknown was reduced, whereas men adopted a global strategy based on an approximately uniform distribution of choices. Women’s exploratory behavior gives rise to a notion of a secure base warranting a sense of safety while men’s behavior does not appear to be influenced by risk. This sex-related difference was interpreted as a difference in beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events influencing risk evaluation.
Numeracy, frequency, and Bayesian reasoning
Authors: Chapman Gretchen B. , Liu Jingjing
Published: January 2023

Previous research has demonstrated that Bayesian reasoning performance is improved if uncertainty information is presented as natural frequencies rather than single-event probabilities. A questionnaire study of 342 college students replicated this effect but also found that the performance-boosting benefits of the natural frequency presentation occurred primarily for participants who scored high in numeracy. This finding suggests that even comprehension and manipulation of natural frequencies requires a certain threshold of numeracy abilities, and that the beneficial effects of natural frequency presentation may not be as general as previously believed.
New tests of cumulative prospect theory and the priority heuristic: Probability-outcome tradeoff with branch splitting
Authors: Birnbaum Michael H.
Published: January 2023

Previous tests of cumulative prospect theory (CPT) and of the priority heuristic (PH) found evidence contradicting these two models of risky decision making. However, those tests were criticized because they had characteristics that might “trigger” use of other heuristics. This paper presents new tests that avoid those characteristics. Expected values of the gambles are nearly equal in each choice. In addition, if a person followed expected value (EV), expected utility (EU), CPT, or PH in these tests, she would shift her preferences in the same direction as shifts in EV or EU. In contrast, the transfer of attention exchange model (TAX) and a similarity model predict that people will reverse preferences in the opposite direction. Results contradict the PH, even when PH is modified to include a preliminary similarity evaluation using the PH parameters. New tests of probability-consequence interaction were also conducted. Strong interactions were observed, contrary to PH. These results add to the growing bodies of evidence showing that neither CPT nor PH is an accurate description of risky decision making.
Domain-specific temporal discounting and temptation
Authors: Tsukayama Eli , Duckworth Angela Lee
Published: January 2023

In this investigation, we test whether temporal discounting is domain-specific (i.e., compared to other people, can an individual have a relatively high discount rate for one type of reward but a relatively low discount rate for another?), and we examine whether individual differences in the types of rewards one finds tempting explain domain-specificity in discount rates. Adults discounted delayed rewards they found particularly tempting (defined as the visceral attraction to and enjoyment of a reward) more steeply than did adults who did not find the rewards as tempting, contrary to what might be expected from the magnitude effect. Furthermore, we found significant group by domain interactions (e.g., chip lovers who do not like beer have relatively high discount rates for chips and relatively low discount rates for beer, whereas beer lovers who do not like chips showed the opposite pattern). These results suggest that domain-specificity in temptation partially accounts for corresponding domain-specificity in temporal discounting.
The “organic” path to obesity? Organic claims influence calorie judgments
and exercise recommendations
Authors: Schuldt Jonathon P. , Schwarz Norbert
Published: January 2023

Labeling a food as “organic” entails a claim about its production but is
silent on its calorie content. Nevertheless, people infer that organic
cookies are lower in calories and can be eaten more often than conventional
cookies (Study 1). These inferences are observed even when the nutrition
label conveys identical calorie content and are more pronounced among
perceivers high on pro-environmentalism. Moreover, when evaluating a person
with a weight-loss goal, forgoing exercise is deemed more acceptable when
the person has just chosen organic rather than conventional dessert (Study
2). These results reflect an “organic/natural”-“healthy” association that is
capable of biasing everyday judgments about diet and exercise.
Prefer a cash slap in your face over credit for halva
Authors: Ekhtiari Hamed , Behzadi Arian , Dehghani Morteza , Jannati Ali , Mokri Azarakhsh
Published: January 2023

We investigated how frequency and amount of punishment affect the decision making of Iranian subjects. In our first experiment, performing a computer-based Persian version of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), our subjects scored remarkably lower than their Western counterparts. Moreover, our subjects chose more frequently and more rapidly from decks that had less frequent but larger amounts of punishments in comparison to decks that had more frequent punishments with smaller amounts. In our second experiment, subjects did not differentiate between decks with the same frequency of punishment but with different punishment amounts. However, among decks with the same amount but different frequency of punishment, a significant preference was apparent towards decks with less frequency of punishment. Our results differ from previous studies, indicating a different strategy in risky decision making among healthy adult Iranian subjects, as they show low attention to the amount of punishment and are more concerned with the frequency of punishment.
Fear and loathing in Las Vegas: Evidence from blackjack tables
Authors: Carlin Bruce I. , Robinson David T.
Published: January 2023

This paper uses proprietary data from a blackjack table in Las Vegas to analyze how the expectation of regret affects peoples’ decisions during gambles. Even among a group of people who choose to participate in a risk-taking activity, we find strong evidence of an economically significant omission bias: 80% of the mistakes at the table are caused by playing too conservatively, resulting in substantial monetary losses. This behavior is equally prevalent among large-stakes gamblers and does not change in the face of more complicated strategic decisions.
The Drift Diffusion Model can account for the accuracy and reaction time of value-based choices under high and low time pressure
Authors: Milosavljevic Milica , Malmaud Jonathan , Huth Alexander , Koch Christof , Rangel Antonio
Published: January 2023

An important open problem is how values are compared to make simple choices. A natural hypothesis is that the brain carries out the computations associated with the value comparisons in a manner consistent with the Drift Diffusion Model (DDM), since this model has been able to account for a large amount of data in other domains. We investigated the ability of four different versions of the DDM to explain the data in a real binary food choice task under conditions of high and low time pressure. We found that a seven-parameter version of the DDM can account for the choice and reaction time data with high-accuracy, in both the high and low time pressure conditions. The changes associated with the introduction of time pressure could be traced to changes in two key model parameters: the barrier height and the noise in the slope of the drift process.
Glucose promotes controlled processing: Matching, maximizing, and root beer
Authors: McMahon Anthony J. , Scheel Matthew H.
Published: January 2023

Participants drank either regular root beer or sugar-free diet root beer before working on a probability-learning task in which they tried to predict which of two events would occur on each of 200 trials. One event (E1) randomly occurred on 140 trials, the other (E2) on 60. In each of the last two blocks of 50 trials, the regular group matched prediction and event frequencies. In contrast, the diet group predicted E1 more often in each of these blocks. After the task, participants were asked to write down rules they used for responding. Blind ratings of rule complexity were inversely related to E1 predictions in the final 50 trials. Participants also took longer to advance after incorrect predictions and before predicting E2, reflecting time for revising and consulting rules. These results support the hypothesis that an effortful controlled process of normative rule-generation produces matching in probability-learning experiments, and that this process is a function of glucose availability.
In defense of the personal/impersonal distinction in moral psychology research: Cross-cultural validation of the dual process model of moral judgment
Authors: Moore Adam B. , Lee N. Y. Louis , Clark Brian A. M. , Conway Andrew R. A.
Published: January 2023

The dual process model of moral judgment (DPM; Greene et al., 2004) argues that such judgments are influenced by both emotion-laden intuition and controlled reasoning. These influences are associated with distinct neural circuitries and different response tendencies. After reanalyzing data from an earlier study, McGuire et al. (2009) questioned the level of support for the dual process model and asserted that the distinction between emotion evoking moral dilemmas (personal dilemmas) and those that do not trigger such intuitions (impersonal dilemmas) is spurious. Using similar reanalysis methods on data reported by Moore, Clark, & Kane (2008), we show that the personal/impersonal distinction is reliable. Furthermore, new data show that this distinction is fundamental to moral judgment across widely different cultures (U.S. and China) and supports claims made by the DPM.
A proximity effect in adults’ contamination intuitions
Authors: Kim Laura R. , Kim Nancy S.
Published: January 2023

Magical beliefs about contagion via contact (Rozin, Nemeroff, Wane, & Sherrod, 1989) may emerge when people overgeneralize real-world mechanisms of contamination beyond their appropriate boundaries (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007). Do people similarly overextend knowledge of airborne contamination mechanisms? Previous work has shown that very young children believe merely being close to a contamination source can contaminate an item (Springer & Belk 1994); we asked whether this same hyper-avoidant intuition is also reflected in adults’ judgments. In two studies, we measured adults’ ratings of the desirability of an object that had made contact with a source of contamination, an object nearby that had made no contact with the contaminant, and an object far away that had also made no contact. Adults showed a clear proximity effect, wherein objects near the contamination source were perceived to be less desirable than those far away, even though a separate group of adults unanimously acknowledged that contaminants could not possibly have made contact with either the nearby or far-away object (Study 1). The proximity effect also remained robust when a third group of adults was explicitly told that no contaminating particles had made contact with the objects at any time (Study 2). We discuss implications of our findings for extending the scope of magical contagion effects beyond the contact principle, for understanding the persistence of intuitive theories despite broad acceptance of science-based theories, and for constraining interpretations of the developmental work on proximity beliefs.
Reference-dependent preferences and loss aversion: A discrete choice experiment in the health-care sector
Authors: Neuman Einat , Neuman Shoshana
Published: January 2023

This study employs a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) in the health-care sector to test the loss aversion theory that is derived from reference-dependent preferences: The absolute subjective value of a deviation from a reference point is generally greater when the deviation represents a loss than when the same-sized change is perceived as a gain. As far as is known, this paper is the first to use a DCE to test the loss aversion theory. A DCE is a highly suitable tool for such testing because it estimates the marginal valuations of attributes, based on deviations from a reference point (a constant scenario). Moreover, loss aversion can be examined for each attribute separately. Another advantage of a DCE is that is can be applied to non-traded goods with non-tangible attributes. A health-care event is used for empirical illustration: The loss aversion theory is tested within the context of preference structures for maternity-ward attributes, estimated using data gathered from 3850 observations made by a sample of 542 women who had recently given birth. Seven hypotheses are presented and tested. Overall, significant support for behavioral loss aversion theories was found.
Investigating intuitive and deliberate processes statistically: The multiple-measure maximum likelihood strategy classification method
Authors: Glöckner Andreas
Published: January 2023

One of the core challenges of decision research is to identify individuals’ decision strategies without influencing decision behavior by the method used. Bröder and Schiffer (2003) suggested a method to classify decision strategies based on a maximum likelihood estimation, comparing the probability of individuals’ choices given the application of a certain strategy and a constant error rate. Although this method was shown to be unbiased and practically useful, it obviously does not allow differentiating between models that make the same predictions concerning choices but different predictions for the underlying process, which is often the case when comparing complex to simple models or when comparing intuitive and deliberate strategies. An extended method is suggested that additionally includes decision times and confidence judgments in a simultaneous Multiple-Measure Maximum Likelihood estimation. In simulations, it is shown that the method is unbiased and sensitive to differentiate between strategies if the effects on times and confidence are sufficiently large.
Compensatory versus noncompensatory models for predicting consumer preferences
Authors: Dieckmann Anja , Dippold Katrin , Dietrich Holger
Published: January 2023

Standard preference models in consumer research assume that people weigh and add all attributes of the available options to derive a decision, while there is growing evidence for the use of simplifying heuristics. Recently, a greedoid algorithm has been developed (Yee, Dahan, Hauser & Orlin, 2007; Kohli & Jedidi, 2007) to model lexicographic heuristics from preference data. We compare predictive accuracies of the greedoid approach and standard conjoint analysis in an online study with a rating and a ranking task. The lexicographic model derived from the greedoid algorithm was better at predicting ranking compared to rating data, but overall, it achieved lower predictive accuracy for hold-out data than the compensatory model estimated by conjoint analysis. However, a considerable minority of participants was better predicted by lexicographic strategies. We conclude that the new algorithm will not replace standard tools for analyzing preferences, but can boost the study of situational and individual differences in preferential choice processes.
When a risky prospect is valued more than its best possible outcome
Authors: Drichoutis Andreas C. , Nayga Rodolfo M. , Lusk Jayson L. , Lazaridis Panagiotis
Published: January 2023

In this paper, we document a violation of normative and descriptive models of decision making under risk. In contrast to uncertainty effects found by Gneezy, List and Wu (2006), some subjects in our experiments valued lotteries more than the best possible outcome. We show that the overbidding effect is more strongly related to individuals’ competitiveness traits than comprehension of the lottery’s payoff mechanism.
Repeated judgment sampling: Boundaries
Authors: Müller-Trede Johannes
Published: January 2023

This paper investigates the boundaries of the recent result that eliciting more than one estimate from the same person and averaging these can lead to accuracy gains in judgment tasks. It first examines its generality, analysing whether the kind of question being asked has an effect on the size of potential gains. Experimental results show that the question type matters. Previous results reporting potential accuracy gains are reproduced for year-estimation questions, and extended to questions about percentage shares. On the other hand, no gains are found for general numerical questions. The second part of the paper tests repeated judgment sampling’s practical applicability by asking judges to provide a third and final answer on the basis of their first two estimates. In an experiment, the majority of judges do not consistently average their first two answers. As a result, they do not realise the potential accuracy gains from averaging.
Maximizing and customer loyalty: Are maximizers less loyal?
Authors: Lai Linda
Published: January 2023

Despite their efforts to choose the best of all available solutions, maximizers seem to be more inclined than satisficers to regret their choices and to experience post-decisional dissonance. Maximizers may therefore be expected to change their decisions more frequently and hence exhibit lower customer loyalty to providers of products and services compared to satisficers. Findings from the study reported here (N = 1978) support this prediction. Maximizers reported significantly higher intentions to switch to another service provider (television provider) than satisficers. Maximizers’ intentions to switch appear to be intensified and mediated by higher proneness to regret, increased desire to discuss relevant choices with others, higher levels of perceived knowledge of alternatives, and higher ego involvement in the end product, compared to satisficers. Opportunities for future research are suggested.
Processing of recognition information and additional cues: A model-based analysis of choice, confidence, and response time
Authors: Glöckner Andreas , Bröder Arndt
Published: January 2023

Research on the processing of recognition information has focused on testing the recognition heuristic (RH). On the aggregate, the noncompensatory use of recognition information postulated by the RH was rejected in several studies, while RH could still account for a considerable proportion of choices. These results can be explained if either a) a part of the subjects used RH or b) nobody used it but its choice predictions were accidentally in line with predictions of the strategy used. In the current study, which exemplifies a new approach to model testing, we determined individuals’ decision strategies based on a maximum-likelihood classification method, taking into account choices, response times and confidence ratings simultaneously. Unlike most previous studies of the RH, our study tested the RH under conditions in which we provided information about cue values of unrecognized objects (which we argue is fairly common and thus of some interest). For 77.5% of the subjects, overall behavior was best explained by a compensatory parallel constraint satisfaction (PCS) strategy. The proportion of subjects using an enhanced RH heuristic (RHe) was negligible (up to 7.5%); 15% of the subjects seemed to use a take the best strategy (TTB). A more-fine grained analysis of the supplemental behavioral parameters conditional on strategy use supports PCS but calls into question process assumptions for apparent users of RH, RHe, and TTB within our experimental context. Our results are consistent with previous literature highlighting the importance of individual strategy classification as compared to aggregated analyses.
Recognition judgments and the performance of the recognition heuristic depend on the size of the reference class
Authors: Hoffrage Ulrich
Published: January 2023

In a series of three experiments, participants made inferences about which one of a pair of two objects scored higher on a criterion. The first experiment was designed to contrast the prediction of Probabilistic Mental Model theory (Gigerenzer, Hoffrage, & Kleinbölting, 1991) concerning sampling procedure with the hard-easy effect. The experiment failed to support the theory’s prediction that a particular pair of randomly sampled item sets would differ in percentage correct; but the observation that German participants performed practically as well on comparisons between U.S. cities (many of which they did not even recognize) than on comparisons between German cities (about which they knew much more) ultimately led to the formulation of the recognition heuristic. Experiment 2 was a second, this time successful, attempt to unconfound item difficulty and sampling procedure. In Experiment 3, participants’ knowledge and recognition of each city was elicited, and how often this could be used to make an inference was manipulated. Choices were consistent with the recognition heuristic in about 80% of the cases when it discriminated and people had no additional knowledge about the recognized city (and in about 90% when they had such knowledge). The frequency with which the heuristic could be used affected the percentage correct, mean confidence, and overconfidence as predicted. The size of the reference class, which was also manipulated, modified these effects in meaningful and theoretically important ways.
Four challenges for cognitive research on the recognition heuristic and a call for a research strategy shift
Authors: Tomlinson Tracy , Marewski Julian N. , Dougherty Michael
Published: January 2023

The recognition heuristic assumes that people make inferences based on the output of recognition memory. While much work has been devoted to establishing the recognition heuristic as a viable description of how people make inferences, more work is needed to fully integrate research on the recognition heuristic with research from the broader cognitive psychology literature. In this article, we outline four challenges that should be met for this integration to take place, and close with a call to address these four challenges collectively, rather than piecemeal.
Encoding, storage and judgment of experienced frequency and duration
Authors: Betsch Tilmann , Glauer Madlen , Renkewitz Frank , Winkler Isabell , Sedlmeier Peter
Published: January 2023

This paper examines conditions that do or do not lead to accurate judgments of frequency (JOF) and judgments of duration (JOD). In three experiments, duration and frequency of visually presented stimuli are varied orthogonally in a within-subjects design. Experiment 1 reveals anasymmetricjudgment pattern. JOFs reflected actual presentation frequency quite accurately and were unbiased by exposure duration. Conversely, JODs were almost insensitive to actual exposure duration and were systematically biased by presentation frequency. We show, however, that a tendency towards asymmetricjudgment pattern can be obtained by manipulating encoding conditions. Sustaining attention during encoding (Experiment 2) or enhancing richness of the encoded stimuli (Experiment 3) increases judgment sensitivity in JOD and yields biases in both directions (JOF biased by exposure duration, JOD biased by presentation frequency). The implications of these findings for underlying memory mechanisms are discussed.
Do you look forward to retirement? Motivational biases in pension decisions
Authors: Kogut Tehila , Dahan Momi
Published: January 2023

This research examines the relationship between positive and negative perceptions of pensions and motivation to engage in the decision process of choosing a private pension plan, as well as satisfaction from the chosen pension plan, among trained economists. A sample of 134 economists completed a self-report survey examining the decision process of different decision contexts in life, including pension decisions. Overall, participants showed low motivation to engage in the process of choosing a private pension plan, compared to their motivation to engage in other decision tasks. However, economists invested more in the decision process and showed greater satisfaction from their decision regarding their pension plan when they had a more positive perception of pensions. This perception is represented by higher subjective likelihood of receiving pension allowances for a long period, and by a profitable view of the balance between current payments and expected incomes from pension saving.
Dishonestly increasing the likelihood of winning
Authors: Shalvi Shaul
Published: January 2023

People not only seek to avoid losses or secure gains; they also attempt to create opportunities for obtaining positive outcomes. When distributing money between gambles with equal probabilities, people often invest in turning negative gambles into positive ones, even at a cost of reduced expected value. Results of an experiment revealed that (1) the preference to turn a negative outcome into a positive outcome exists when people’s ability to do so depends on their performance levels (rather than merely on their choice), (2) this preference is amplified when the likelihood to turn negative into positive is high rather than low, and (3) this preference is attenuated when people can lie about their performance levels, allowing them to turn negative into positive not by performing better but rather by lying about how well they performed.
Probability biases as Bayesian inference
Authors: Martins André C. R.
Published: January 2023

In this article, I will show how several observed biases in human probabilistic reasoning can be partially explained as good heuristics for making inferences in an environment where probabilities have uncertainties associated to them. Previous results show that the weight functions and the observed violations of coalescing and stochastic dominance can be understood from a Bayesian point of view. We will review those results and see that Bayesian methods should also be used as part of the explanation behind other known biases. That means that, although the observed errors are still errors under the laboratory conditions in which they are demonstrated, they can be understood as adaptations to the solution of real life problems. Heuristics that allow fast evaluations and mimic a Bayesian inference would be an evolutionary advantage, since they would give us an efficient way of making decisions.
Making decision research useful—not just rewarding
Authors: Brown Rex V.
Published: January 2023

An experienced decision aider reflects on how misaligned priorities produce decision research that is less useful than it could be. Scientific interest and professional standing may motivate researchers — and their funders and publishers — more powerfully than concern to help people make better
Exemplar-based inference in multi-attribute decision making: Contingent, not automatic, strategy shifts?
Authors: Karlsson Linnea , Juslin Peter , Olsson Henrik
Published: January 2023

Several studies propose that exemplar retrieval contributes to multi-attribute decisions. The authors have proposed a process theory enabling a priori predictions of what cognitive representations people use as input to their judgment process (Sigma, for “summation”; P. Juslin, L. Karlsson, & H. Olsson, 2008). According to Sigma, exemplar retrieval is a back-up system when the task does not allow for additive and linear abstraction and integration of cue-criterion knowledge (e.g., when the task is non-additive). An important question is to what extent such shifts occur spontaneously as part of automatic procedures, such as error-minimization with the Delta rule, or if they are controlled strategy shifts contingent on the ability to identify a sufficiently successful judgment strategy. In this article data are reviewed that demonstrate a shift between exemplar memory and cue abstraction, as well as data where the expected shift does not occur. In contrast to a common assumption of previous models, these results suggest a controlled and contingent strategy shift.
Theories of truth as assessment criteria in judgment and decision making
Authors: Dunwoody Philip T.
Published: January 2023

Hammond (1996) argued that much of the research in the field of judgment and decision making (JDM) can be categorized as focused on either coherence or correspondence (C&C) and that, in order to understand the findings of the field, one needs to understand the differences between these two criteria.Hammond’s claimis that conclusions about the competence of judgments and decisions will depend upon the selection of coherence or correspondence as the criterion (Hammond, 2008). First, I provide an overview of the terms coherence and correspondence (C&C) as philosophical theories of truth and relate them to the field of JDM. Second, I provide an example of Hammond’s claim by examining literature on base rate neglect. Third, I examine Hammond’s claim as it applies to the broader field of JDM. Fourth, I critique Hammond’s claim and suggest that refinements to the C&C distinction are needed. Specifically, the C&C distinction 1) is more accurately applied to criteria than to researchers, 2) should be refined to include two important types of coherence (inter and intrapersonal coherence) and 3) neglects the third philosophical theory of truth, pragmatism. Pragmatism, as a class of criteria in JDM, is defined as goal attainment. In order to provide the most complete assessment of human judgment possible, and understand different findings in the field of JDM, all three criteria should be considered.
The size and distribution of donations: Effects of number of recipients
Authors: Soyer Emre , Hogarth Robin M.
Published: January 2023

Whereas much literature exists on “choice overload”, less is known about effects of numbers of alternatives in donation decisions. We hypothesize that donations increase with the number of recipients, albeit at a decreasing rate, and reflect donors’ knowledge of the recipients. Donations involve different concepts of fairness—equity and equality—and these can interact with numbers of alternatives. In two experiments, respondents indicated how they would donate lottery winnings of 50 Euros. Results showed, first, that more was donated to non-governmental organizations and campaigns that respondents knew better. Second, total donations increased with the number of recipients albeit at a decreasing rate. Third, when limited to giving to only one of multiple alternatives, donors gave less than when this restriction did not apply. Fourth, variability of donations can both increase and decrease with the number of potential recipients. We comment on theoretical and practical implications as well as suggesting issues for future research.
An illusion of control modulates the reluctance to tempt fate
Authors: Swirsky Chloe L. , Fernbach Philip M. , Sloman Steven A.
Published: January 2023

The tempting fate effect is that the probability of a fateful outcome is deemed higher following an action that “tempts” the outcome than in the absence of such an action. In this paper we evaluate the hypothesis that the effect is due to an illusion of control induced by a causal framing of the situation. Causal frames require that the action make a difference to an outcome and that the action precedes the outcome. If an illusion of control modulates the reluctance to tempt fate, then actions that make a difference to well-being and that occur prior to the outcome should tempt fate most strongly. In Experiments 1–3 we varied whether the action makes a difference and the temporal order of action and outcome. In Experiment 4 we tested whether an action can tempt fate if all outcomes are negative. The results of all four experiments supported our hypothesis that the tempting fate effect depends on a causal construal that gives rise to a false sense of control.
Trust and self-control: The moderating role of the default
Authors: Evans Anthony M. , Dillon Kyle D. , Goldin Gideon , Krueger Joachim I.
Published: January 2023

According to recent dual-process theories, interpersonal trust is influenced by both impulsive and deliberative processes. The present research explores the determinants of deliberative trust, investigating how trust decisions are affected by the availability of cognitive resources. We test the interaction of two relevant factors: self-control (the ability to exert mental control over one’s behavior) and the default response (a preselected option that requires minimal or no effort). Past research has shown that self-control has extensive effects on social behavior and decision making. Here, we report that the effect of self-control on trust depends on the default. Across two studies, we find no direct link between self-control and trust. Instead, self-control affects trust indirectly by influencing the level of effort in decision making. Poor self-control (due to experimental depletion or trait-based differences) predicts adherence to the default—the response that requires the least effort.
Ambiguity aversion in a delay analogue of the Ellsberg Paradox
Authors: Weber Bethany J. , Tan Wah Pheow
Published: January 2023

Decision makers are often ambiguity averse, preferring options with subjectively known probabilities to options with unknown probabilities. The Ellsberg paradox is the best-known example of this phenomenon. Ambiguity has generally been studied in the domain of risky choice, and many theories of ambiguity aversion deal with ambiguity only in this context. However, ambiguity aversion may occur in other contexts. In the present experiment, we examine the effects of ambiguity in intertemporal choice. Subjects imagine they are expecting a package and must choose between two delivery options. Some delivery times are exact. Others are ambiguous, with delivery possible over a range of dates. This problem was structurally identical to the Ellsberg paradox. Subjects showed the same pattern of responses as in the traditional Ellsberg paradox, with each delivery service preferred when it was the unambiguous option. Ambiguity aversion is not specific to risk, but can also occur in other domains.