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The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective

The equiprobability bias (EB) is a tendency to believe that every process in which randomness is involved corresponds to a fair distribution, with equal probabilities for any possible outcome. The EB is known to affect both children and adults, and to increase with probability education. Because it...

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Autores principales: Gauvrit, Nicolas, Morsanyi, Kinga
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: University of Finance and Management in Warsaw 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25674192
http://dx.doi.org/10.5709/acp-0163-9
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author Gauvrit, Nicolas
Morsanyi, Kinga
author_facet Gauvrit, Nicolas
Morsanyi, Kinga
author_sort Gauvrit, Nicolas
collection PubMed
description The equiprobability bias (EB) is a tendency to believe that every process in which randomness is involved corresponds to a fair distribution, with equal probabilities for any possible outcome. The EB is known to affect both children and adults, and to increase with probability education. Because it results in probability errors resistant to pedagogical interventions, it has been described as a deep misconception about randomness: the erroneous belief that randomness implies uniformity. In the present paper, we show that the EB is actually not the result of a conceptual error about the definition of randomness. On the contrary, the mathematical theory of randomness does imply uniformity. However, the EB is still a bias, because people tend to assume uniformity even in the case of events that are not random. The pervasiveness of the EB reveals a paradox: The combination of random processes is not necessarily random. The link between the EB and this paradox is discussed, and suggestions are made regarding educational design to overcome difficulties encountered by students as a consequence of the EB.
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spelling pubmed-43107482015-02-11 The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective Gauvrit, Nicolas Morsanyi, Kinga Adv Cogn Psychol Research Article The equiprobability bias (EB) is a tendency to believe that every process in which randomness is involved corresponds to a fair distribution, with equal probabilities for any possible outcome. The EB is known to affect both children and adults, and to increase with probability education. Because it results in probability errors resistant to pedagogical interventions, it has been described as a deep misconception about randomness: the erroneous belief that randomness implies uniformity. In the present paper, we show that the EB is actually not the result of a conceptual error about the definition of randomness. On the contrary, the mathematical theory of randomness does imply uniformity. However, the EB is still a bias, because people tend to assume uniformity even in the case of events that are not random. The pervasiveness of the EB reveals a paradox: The combination of random processes is not necessarily random. The link between the EB and this paradox is discussed, and suggestions are made regarding educational design to overcome difficulties encountered by students as a consequence of the EB. University of Finance and Management in Warsaw 2014-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC4310748/ /pubmed/25674192 http://dx.doi.org/10.5709/acp-0163-9 Text en Copyright: © 2014 University of Finance and Management in Warsaw http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Gauvrit, Nicolas
Morsanyi, Kinga
The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective
title The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective
title_full The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective
title_fullStr The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective
title_full_unstemmed The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective
title_short The Equiprobability Bias from a Mathematical and Psychological Perspective
title_sort equiprobability bias from a mathematical and psychological perspective
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4310748/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25674192
http://dx.doi.org/10.5709/acp-0163-9
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