Showing papers on "Fuzzy-trace theory published in 2015"

Educating Intuition Reducing Risky Decisions Using Fuzzy-Trace Theory

Abstract: Risky decision-making, especially in adolescence, is a major public health problem. However, fuzzy-trace theory suggests that bad outcomes are preventable by changing thinking, and, therefore, feelings, about risks. The theory aligns with new findings and has been shown to be effective in experiments on sexual risk-taking, medication adherence, and genetic testing. Despite the vulnerabilities of the adolescent brain, decision processes can be modified by applying evidence-based theory.

How Reasoning, Judgment, and Decision Making are Colored by Gist-based Intuition: A Fuzzy-Trace Theory Approach.

Abstract: Fuzzy-trace theory distinguishes verbatim (literal, exact) from gist (meaningful) representations, predicting that reliance on gist increases with experience and expertise. Thus, many judgment-and-decision-making biases increase with development, such that cognition is colored by context in ways that violate logical coherence and probability theories. Nevertheless, this increase in gist-based intuition is adaptive: Gist is stable, less sensitive to interference, and easier to manipulate. Moreover, gist captures the functionally significant essence of information, supporting healthier and more robust decision processes. We describe how fuzzy-trace theory accounts for judgment-and-decision making phenomena, predicting the paradoxical arc of these processes with the development of experience and expertise. We present data linking gist memory processes to gist processing in decision making and provide illustrations of gist reliance in medicine, public health, and intelligence analysis.

Development of Risky Decision Making: Fuzzy-Trace Theory and Neurobiological Perspectives.

Abstract: Developmental differences in mental representations of choices, reward sensitivity, and behavioral inhibition (self-control) explain greater susceptibility to risk taking. Ironically, relying on precise representations in reasoning promotes greater risk taking, but this reliance declines as adolescents mature. This phenomenon is known as a developmental reversal; it is called a reversal because it violates traditional developmental expectations of greater cognitive complexity with maturation. Fuzzy-trace theory (FTT) predicts reversals by proposing two types of mental representation (gist and verbatim), and that risk takers rely more on verbatim processing when making decisions. In this article, we describe the main tenets of FTT and explain how it can account for risky decision making. We also explore the neural underpinnings of development and decision making in the context of distinctions from FTT. FTT's predictions elucidate unanswered questions about risk taking, providing directions for research.

The Gist of Juries: Testing a Model of Damage Award Decision Making

Abstract: Despite the importance of damage awards, juries are often at sea about the amounts that should be awarded, with widely differing awards for cases that seem comparable. We tested a new model of damage award decision making by systematically varying the size, context, and meaningfulness of numerical comparisons or anchors. As a result, we were able to elicit large differences in award amounts that replicated for 2 different cases. Although even arbitrary dollar amounts (unrelated to the cases) influenced the size of award judgments, the most consistent effects of numerical anchors were achieved when the amounts were meaningful in the sense that they conveyed the gist of numbers as small or large. Consistent with the model, the ordinal gist of the severity of plaintiff's damages and defendant's liability predicted damage awards, controlling for other factors such as motivation for the award-judgment task and perceived economic damages. Contrary to traditional dual-process approaches, numeracy and cognitive style (e.g., need for cognition and cognitive reflection) were not significant predictors of these numerical judgments, but they were associated with lower levels of variability once the gist of the judgments was taken into account. Implications for theory and policy are discussed.

A neural network model of decisions on the Asian Disease Problem

Abstract: Tversky and Kahneman [1] found that human decisions can be inconsistent across descriptions of the options. An example is the Asian Disease Problem, whereby preferences between two public health programs are different when options are framed in terms of deaths versus lives saved. Several variants of the Asian Disease paradigm and an analogous problem were run [2, 3]: the results showed that the strength of the framing effect depended on whether one of options explicitly contained the possibility of no lives lost or saved. This result was explained by fuzzy trace theory whereby decisions are based not on details of the options but on their gist (underlying meaning). We simulate these results using a neural network model that blends fuzzy trace theory with adaptive resonance theory and contains analogs of orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, anterior cingulate, and striatum.

Gist Representations and Communication of Risks about HIV-AIDS: A Fuzzy-Trace Theory Approach

Abstract: As predicted by fuzzy-trace theory, people with a range of training—from untrained adolescents to expert physicians—are susceptible to biases and errors in judgment and perception of HIV-AIDS risk. To explain why this occurs, we introduce fuzzy-trace theory as a theoretical perspective that describes these errors to be a function of knowledge deficits, gist-based representation of risk categories, retrieval failure for risk knowledge, and processing interference (e.g., base-rate neglect) in combining risk estimates. These principles explain how people perceive HIV-AIDS risk and why they take risks with potentially lethal outcomes, often despite rote (verbatim) knowledge.For example, people inappropriately generalize the wrong gist about condoms’ effectiveness against fluid-borne disease to diseases that are transferred skin-to-skin, such as HPV. We also describe how variation in processing in adolescence (e.g., more verbatim processing compared to adults) can be a route to risk-taking that explains key aspects of why many people are infected with HIV in youth, as well as how interventions that emphasize bottom-line gists communicate risks effectively.

Multiple traces or Fuzzy Traces? Converging evidence for applications of modern cognitive theory to psychotherapy.

Abstract: Neurobiologically informed integration of research on memory, emotion, and behavior change in psychotherapy is needed, which Lane at al. advance. Memory reconsolidation that incorporates new emotional experience plays an important role in therapeutic change, converging with evidence for Fuzzy Trace Theory. Applications of Fuzzy Trace Theory to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for youth at risk for psychosis, and to other aspects of behavior change, are discussed.