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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 24, 2026

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients

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Published on: June 12, 2020

Reasoning with base rates is routine, relatively effortless, and context dependent.

Gordon Pennycook¹, Valerie A Thompson

¹Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, ON, Canada, N2L 3G1. gpennyco@uwaterloo.ca

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

|March 20, 2012

Summary

This study on base rate neglect reveals that people intuitively use base rate information, challenging previous assumptions. Base rate neglect is not a failure but a strategic choice between base rates and descriptions.

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Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Decision Making
Social Cognition

Background:

The phenomenon of base rate neglect suggests individuals often ignore statistical base rate information when making probability judgments.
Previous models proposed base rate neglect as a cognitive bias or error in reasoning.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the underlying mechanisms of base rate neglect using a novel experimental paradigm.
To test whether base rate use is effortful or intuitive and context-dependent.

Main Methods:

Participants (N=62) judged the probability of a person belonging to one of two categories.
Judgments were made based on personality descriptions alone (NoBR) or with base rate information (BR).
Congruent and incongruent base rates with descriptions were used to examine their effects.

Main Results:

When base rates and descriptions were congruent, judgments were higher and more uniform with base rate information.
Incongruent base rates led to polarizing judgments, aligning with either base rates or descriptions.
Intuitive judgments were influenced by base rates and took similar time in both conditions.

Conclusions:

Base rate use is context-dependent, influencing integration with diagnostic information.
Base rate neglect may represent a mixture of strategies, not a uniform cognitive failure.
Base rate utilization appears to be a routine and effortless cognitive process.