Humans' responses to novel stimulus compounds and the effects of training

Judgment and decision making: Behavioral approaches

The area of judgment and decision making has given rise to the study of many interesting phenomena, including reasoning fallacies, which are also of interest to behavior analysts. Indeed, techniques and principles of behavior analysis may be applied to study these fallacies. This article reviews research from a behavioral perspective that suggests that humans are not the information-seekers we sometimes suppose ourselves to be. Nor do we utilize information effectively when it is presented. This is shown from the results of research utilizing matching to sample and other behavioral tools (monetary reward, feedback, instructional control) to study phenomena such as the conjunction fallacy, base-rate neglect, and probability matching. Research from a behavioral perspective can complement research from other perspectives in furthering our understanding of judgment and decision making.

"Falácia da conjunção": definição e variáveis de controle

A falácia da conjunção ocorre quando a conjunção de dois eventos é julgada como mais provável de ocorrer do que seus eventos constituintes. Esse fenômeno tem sido investigado principalmente por psicólogos cognitivistas, mas, recentemente, tem atraído o interesse de alguns analistas do comportamento. O presente trabalho consiste em um resumo da literatura sobre falácia, no qual são enfatizadas as estratégias metodológicas utilizadas e os resultados empíricos obtidos. Dentre as variáveis controladoras analisadas, são destacadas a representatividade, o uso inadequado de regras probabilísticas, as experiências passadas com os eventos constituintes e compostos, o treino estatístico e os aspectos verbais e contextuais.