Cilia Witteman

Beyond dual-process models: A categorisation of processes underlying intuitive judgement and decision making

Intuitive-automatic processes are crucial for making judgements and decisions. The fascinating complexity of these processes has attracted many decision researchers, prompting them to start investigating intuition empirically and to develop numerous models. Dual-process models assume a clear distinction between intuitive and deliberate processes but provide no further differentiation within both categories. We go beyond these models and argue that intuition is not a homogeneous concept, but a label used for different cognitive mechanisms. We suggest that these mechanisms have to be distinguished to allow for fruitful investigations of intuition. Specifically, we argue that researchers should concentrate on investigating the processes underlying intuition before making strong claims about its performance. We summarise current models for intuition and propose a categorisation according to the underlying cognitive processes: (a) associative intuition based on simple learning–retrieval processes, (b) matching intuition based on comparisons with prototypes/exemplars, (c) accumulative intuition based on automatic evidence accumulation, and (d) constructive intuition based on construction of mental representations. We discuss how this differentiation might help to clarify the relationship between affect and intuition and we derive a very general hypothesis as to when intuition will lead to good decisions and when it will go astray.

Probabilities for a probabilistic network: a case study in oesophageal cancer

With the help of two experts in gastrointestinal oncology from The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Antoni van Leeuwenhoekhuis, a decision-support system is being developed for patient-specific therapy selection for oesophageal cancer. The kernel of the system is a probabilistic network that describes the presentation characteristics of cancer of the oesophagus and the pathophysiological processes of invasion and metastasis. While the construction of the graphical structure of the network was relatively straightforward, probability elicitation with existing methods proved to be a major obstacle. To overcome this obstacle, we designed a new method for eliciting probabilities from experts that combines the ideas of transcribing probabilities as fragments of text and of using a scale with both numerical and verbal anchors for marking assessments. In this paper, we report experiences with our method in eliciting the probabilities required for the oesophagus network. The method allowed us to elicit many probabilities in reasonable time. To gain some insight in the quality of the probabilities obtained, we conducted a preliminary evaluation study of our network, using data from real patients. We found that for 85% of the patients, the network predicted the correct cancer stage.

Assessing Rational and Intuitive Thinking Styles

Theories of dual cognition assume two distinguishable information processing styles: rational and intuitive. We discuss how the concepts of rationality and intuition are used in these theories, and the relations of these two thinking styles to personality character- istics. With the Rational-Experiential Inventory (REI; Pacini & Epstein, 1999), a questionnaire that assesses personal preferences for thinking either rationally or intuitively, we found clear evidence for the independence of the two thinking styles in a large Dutch sample (N = 774). We also found Conscientiousness to be a significant predictor of a preference for rational thinking and an inverse predictor of intuitive thinking. We also administered the REI and a Big Five inventory to a Spanish sample (N = 141), and present these results next to those of the Dutch sample. We further established the validity of the REIs distinction between rationality and intuition by administering another measure, the Preference for Intuition or Deliberation (PID; Betsch, 2004, 2008), to a subset of the Dutch sample (n = 405). We briefly describe two small studies in which a preference for rationality or intuition, measured by the REI, was found to be related to task behavior. In the general discussion we consider all results together, and compare them to Pacini and Epsteins results. We conclude that a dual-process distinction between rationality and intuition is valid cross-culturally and that a proclivity toward either is reliably measured by the REI, not only in the USA but in Europe as well.

Fitting decisions: Mood and intuitive versus deliberative decision strategies

We investigated the influence of the compatibility between mood and decision strategies on the subjective value of a decision outcome. Several studies have provided evidence for the idea that a sad mood induces people to analyse information carefully, probably fitting well with a deliberative decision strategy. In a happy mood, people tend to act more strongly on their feelings, probably fitting well with an intuitive decision strategy. However, sometimes the situation demands the use of decision strategies that seem incompatible with mood states. We expected that decision makers would value a decision outcome higher in the case of a fit between mood and decision strategy than in the case of a non-fit. After a mood manipulation, participants were instructed to decide either based on their first affective reaction or after deliberation. Results confirmed our expectations: fitting decisions enhanced the subjective value of a decision outcome.

Evaluation of a verbal-numerical probability scale

For purposes such as the development of decision support systems, the probabilities that model the uncertainties in the domain of application are usually elicited from domain experts. A number of elicitation methods is available. While constructing a real-life system, we however found none of these methods to be quite usable: they turned out to be too time-consuming and difficult for experts. In an earlier paper we described a verbal?numerical response scale we developed to facilitate elicitation of a large number of probabilities. In this paper we describe a study that justifies our claim that use of this verbal?numerical scale generally facilitates the assessment process.

The Unconscious Thought Effect in Clinical Decision Making: An Example in Diagnosis

The unconscious thought effect refers to improved judgments and decisions after a period of distraction. The authors studied the unconscious thought effect in a complex and error-prone part of clinical decision making: diagnosis. Their aim was to test whether conscious versus unconscious processing influenced diagnosis of psychiatric cases. They used case descriptions from the DSM-IV casebook. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to the conscious-processing-condition (i.e., consciously thinking about the information they read in the case description), the other half to the unconscious-processing condition (i.e., performing an unrelated distracter task). The main dependent measure was the total number of correct classifications. Compared to conscious processing, unconscious processing significantly increased the number of correct classifications. The results show the potential merits of unconscious processing in diagnostic decision making.

Explaining treatment decisions

In this article we describe an investigation into the rationale of psychotherapist treatment proposals. Over fifty psychotherapists proposed a treatment for four depressed patients. The proposals were divergent, as we had expected. Moreover, they were poorly statistically predicted from the therapists arguments. The theoretical backgrounds of the therapists were the better, although weaker, predictor. The best explanations of the treatment proposals seemed to be the therapists theory-inspired interpretations of the patient complaints. Structuring the decision task appeared to influence these interpretations. We conclude that a particular theoretical orientation seems to engender a specific interpretation schema of a complaint, which, to therapists, sufficiently explains a treatment decision. We discuss the implications of our findings for patient oriented treatment planning. In diesem Beitrag beschreiben wir eine Untersuchung des Rationals psychotherapeutischer Behand-lungsvorschlage. uber 50 Pyschother...

Medicine in words and numbers: a cross-sectional survey comparing probability assessment scales

BackgroundIn the complex domain of medical decision making, reasoning under uncertainty can benefit from supporting tools. Automated decision support tools often build upon mathematical models, such as Bayesian networks. These networks require probabilities which often have to be assessed by experts in the domain of application. Probability response scales can be used to support the assessment process. We compare assessments obtained with different types of response scale.MethodsGeneral practitioners (GPs) gave assessments on and preferences for three different probability response scales: a numerical scale, a scale with only verbal labels, and a combined verbal-numerical scale we had designed ourselves. Standard analyses of variance were performed.ResultsNo differences in assessments over the three response scales were found. Preferences for type of scale differed: the less experienced GPs preferred the verbal scale, the most experienced preferred the numerical scale, with the groups in between having a preference for the combined verbal-numerical scale.ConclusionWe conclude that all three response scales are equally suitable for supporting probability assessment. The combined verbal-numerical scale is a good choice for aiding the process, since it offers numerical labels to those who prefer numbers and verbal labels to those who prefer words, and accommodates both more and less experienced professionals.

Do intervention plans meet criteria for effective practice to reduce recidivism? How probation officers forget about social capital and basic needs

The increased use of instruments for assessing risks and needs in probation should lead to intervention plans that meet the criteria for effective practice. An analysis of 300 intervention plans from the Dutch probation service showed that the match between the assessed criminogenic needs and the goals and interventions in the intervention plan is fairly low. It was also found that the so-called risk principle is not fully applied by probation officers. In addition, personal goals that the offender values are often not taken fully into account. Finally, the intervention plans have a strong focus on improving human capital, while improving social capital and basic needs often is not part of the intervention plans, even if they were assessed as dynamic criminogenic needs.

Dialogue Games for Inconsistent and Biased Information

In this article, a dialogue game is presented in which coherent conversational sequences with inconsistent and biased information are described at the speech act level. Inconsistent and biased information is represented with bilattice structures, and based on these bilattice structures, a multi-valued logic is defined that makes it possible to describe a dialogue game in which agents can communicate about their cognitive states with inconsistent and biased information. A dialogue game is formalized by, first, defining the agents cognitive state as a set of multi-valued theories, second, by defining the dialogue rules that prescribe permissible communicative acts based on the agents cognitive state, and last, by defining update rules that change the agents cognitive state as a result of communicative acts. We show that an example dialogue with inconsistent and biased information can be derived from our dialogue game.