The Calibration Issue: Theoretical Comments on Suantak, Bolger, and Ferrell (1996)

In this comment on a recent article in this journal on calibration of subjective probabilities by Suantak, Bolger, and Ferrell (1996) we point to methodological problems with the data presented in the article, with computer simulations we demonstrate that the results claimed by the authors to refute the ecological models (Gigerenzer, Hoffrage, & Kleinbölting, 1991; Juslin, 1994) are actually predicted by them, and we respond to the criticisms of the notion of "ecological cue validity." It is further argued that contrary to the claims by the authors: The decision variable partition model advocated by the authors fails to account for the results reported in the article, but there is one error model-the combined error model (Juslin, Olsson, & Björkman, 1997)-that predicts the observed symmetric hard-easy effect with crossover at proportion correct .75. Finally, an analysis of 44 cognitive and 21 sensory tasks demonstrates that there is a difference in calibration for sensory and cognitive tasks. Copyright 1998 Academic Press.