Failure to use probability of success in deciding whether to pursue one goal or two

Warren R.G. James, Alasdair D.F. Clarke, Amelia R. Hunt

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingPublished conference contribution

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Difficult tasks should be attempted one at a time, while easy tasks can be undertaken in parallel. Reinforcing our previous conclusion that people are surprisingly poor at applying this logic, we find people fail to select standing positions that maximize their probability of success in throwing a beanbag into one of two possible hoops. We asked participants to explicitly report their odds of successfully throwing a beanbag into each hoop from the location they had chosen to stand, and estimates were highly accurate. Nonetheless, participants failed to use estimates of success appropriately to maximize success, suggesting a failure of insight, rather than limited or inaccurate information, can account for suboptimal decisions about standing position.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCogSci 2017 - Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Subtitle of host publicationComputational Foundations of Cognition
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages2279-2283
Number of pages5
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196760
Publication statusPublished - 2017
Event39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Computational Foundations of Cognition, CogSci 2017 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: 26 Jul 201729 Jul 2017

Conference

Conference39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Computational Foundations of Cognition, CogSci 2017
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period26/07/1729/07/17

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported by a James S. McDonnell scholar award (A.R.H.).

Publisher Copyright:
© CogSci 2017.

Keywords

  • Awareness
  • Bounded Rationality
  • Decision Making
  • Optimal Behaviour

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