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Directional verbal probabilities: inconsistencies between preferential judgments and numerical meanings
Hidehito Honda1, Kimihiko Yamagishi
1Graduate School of Decision Science and Technology Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan. hito@ky.hum.titech.ac.jp
Experimental Psychology
|September 8, 2006
Summary
Directionality in verbal probability expressions significantly impacts judgments, showing that numerical meanings alone don't fully explain these effects. This highlights the importance of considering semantic directionality in probability communication.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
- Linguistics
Background:
- Verbal probability expressions carry both numerical and semantic information.
- Directionality, a semantic function, influences how probability is perceived.
- Existing research often focuses on numerical aspects, potentially overlooking directionality's impact.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if preferential judgments align with numerical meanings of verbal probabilities, irrespective of directionality.
- To determine the independent effect of directionality on decision-making.
- To assess the sufficiency of numerical meanings in explaining judgments influenced by verbal probabilities.
Main Methods:
- Two experiments were conducted to analyze preferential judgments.
- Experiment 1 compared perceived certainty between binary choices and numerical translations of verbal probabilities.
- Experiment 2 examined decision correspondence between verbal probabilities and their numerical translations.
Main Results:
- Directionality significantly affected perceived certainty, causing differences between binary choices and numerical translations (Experiment 1).
- Decisions based on verbal probabilities did not consistently match decisions based on their numerical translations (Experiment 2).
- Perceived certainty and decision-making varied due to the directionality of verbal probability expressions.
Conclusions:
- Directionality is an independent feature of verbal probabilities, distinct from their numerical meanings.
- Numerical meanings alone are insufficient to fully explain the influence of directionality on preferential judgments.
- Understanding directionality is crucial for accurately interpreting and utilizing verbal probability expressions in decision-making.
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