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Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition

In decision from experience, the source of probability information affects how probability is distorted in the decision task. Understanding how and why probability is distorted is a key issue in understanding the peculiar character of experience-based decision. We consider how probability informatio...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zhang, Hang, Maloney, Laurence T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Research Foundation 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261445/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22294978
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2012.00001
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author Zhang, Hang
Maloney, Laurence T.
author_facet Zhang, Hang
Maloney, Laurence T.
author_sort Zhang, Hang
collection PubMed
description In decision from experience, the source of probability information affects how probability is distorted in the decision task. Understanding how and why probability is distorted is a key issue in understanding the peculiar character of experience-based decision. We consider how probability information is used not just in decision-making but also in a wide variety of cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks. Very similar patterns of distortion of probability/frequency information have been found in visual frequency estimation, frequency estimation based on memory, signal detection theory, and in the use of probability information in decision-making under risk and uncertainty. We show that distortion of probability in all cases is well captured as linear transformations of the log odds of frequency and/or probability, a model with a slope parameter, and an intercept parameter. We then consider how task and experience influence these two parameters and the resulting distortion of probability. We review how the probability distortions change in systematic ways with task and report three experiments on frequency distortion where the distortions change systematically in the same task. We found that the slope of frequency distortions decreases with the sample size, which is echoed by findings in decision from experience. We review previous models of the representation of uncertainty and find that none can account for the empirical findings.
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spelling pubmed-32614452012-01-31 Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition Zhang, Hang Maloney, Laurence T. Front Neurosci Neuroscience In decision from experience, the source of probability information affects how probability is distorted in the decision task. Understanding how and why probability is distorted is a key issue in understanding the peculiar character of experience-based decision. We consider how probability information is used not just in decision-making but also in a wide variety of cognitive, perceptual, and motor tasks. Very similar patterns of distortion of probability/frequency information have been found in visual frequency estimation, frequency estimation based on memory, signal detection theory, and in the use of probability information in decision-making under risk and uncertainty. We show that distortion of probability in all cases is well captured as linear transformations of the log odds of frequency and/or probability, a model with a slope parameter, and an intercept parameter. We then consider how task and experience influence these two parameters and the resulting distortion of probability. We review how the probability distortions change in systematic ways with task and report three experiments on frequency distortion where the distortions change systematically in the same task. We found that the slope of frequency distortions decreases with the sample size, which is echoed by findings in decision from experience. We review previous models of the representation of uncertainty and find that none can account for the empirical findings. Frontiers Research Foundation 2012-01-19 /pmc/articles/PMC3261445/ /pubmed/22294978 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2012.00001 Text en Copyright © 2012 Zhang and Maloney. http://www.frontiersin.org/licenseagreement This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial License, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Zhang, Hang
Maloney, Laurence T.
Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition
title Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition
title_full Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition
title_fullStr Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition
title_full_unstemmed Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition
title_short Ubiquitous Log Odds: A Common Representation of Probability and Frequency Distortion in Perception, Action, and Cognition
title_sort ubiquitous log odds: a common representation of probability and frequency distortion in perception, action, and cognition
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3261445/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22294978
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2012.00001
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