Authors
A Ross Otto, Arthur Markman, Eric Taylor
Publication date
2010
Journal
Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
Volume
32
Issue
32
Description
Probability-matching is a well-documented suboptimal behavior that arises in simple prediction tasks. We identify two distinct, local choice strategies that both give rise to probabilitymatching behavior on a global level. Using a dual-task paradigm, we evaluate the hypothesis that these qualitatively different strategies exhibit different demands on individuals’ central executive resources. We find that participants placed under a concurrent working memory are driven away from the one-trial-back strategy—utilized by participants without a working memory load—and towards a strategy that integrates a longer window of past outcomes into the current prediction. In other words, the demands of the concurrent task appeared to shift the prediction strategies used by decision-makers in our study.
Scholar articles
AR Otto, A Markman, E Taylor - Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive …, 2010