Laura Macchi (1994) On the Communication and Comprehension of Probabilistic Information . Psycoloquy: 5(11) Base Rate (11)
Versions: ASCII formatted
Psycoloquy 5(11): On the Communication and Comprehension of Probabilistic Information

ON THE COMMUNICATION AND COMPREHENSION OF PROBABILISTIC INFORMATION
Commentary on Koehler on Base-Rate

Laura Macchi
Istituto di Psicologia
Universita degli Studi di Milano
via Larga, 19
20122 - Milano Italy

LMACCHI@imiucca.csi.unimi.it

Abstract

Most tasks used to demonstrate the base rate fallacy are ambiguous about a crucial assumption required for properly applying Bayes' rule. This results in a verbal confusion between likelihood and posterior probability. Experiments that disambiguate the texts presented to subjects have a large effect on the use of the base rate. Some comments on the ecological validity of tasks are offered.

Keywords

Base rate fallacy, Bayes' theorem, decision making, ecological validity, ethics, fallacy, judgment, probability.

References