Decision Science News

CALL FOR PAPERS: ASSOCIATION FOR CONSUMER RESEARCH (ACR) 2017 CONFERENCE

What: Association for Consumer Research North American Conference
When: October 26 – 29, 2017
Where: San Diego, California
Hotel: Manchester Grand Hyatt, 1 Market Pl, San Diego, CA 92101
Submission Deadline: March 10, 2017
Conference website: http://www.acrweb.org/acr/
Call for papers: Call for papers PDF
Conference email: acr2017@umn.edu
Map:

We are delighted to invite you to participate in the 2017 North American Conference of the Association for Consumer Research. We hope you can join us in San Diego, CA, from Thursday, October 26 through Sunday, October 29, 2017, for this exciting conference. Known as California’s “birthplace,” San Diego embodies Southern California culture and is known worldwide as one of the world’s best tourist destinations, year – round. With nearly perfect weather, 70 miles of beautiful coastline, more than 30 sandy beaches, golf courses and major attractions (such as the San Diego Zoo), there is something for everyone. The conference hotel, the Manchester Grand Hyatt, is located on San Diego Bay, and is steps away from the Gaslamp District, 16 – blocks of Victorian – era building s home to some of the City’s best restaurants, bars, clubs, theaters and galleries

CALL FOR PAPERS: SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY, UTILITY AND DECISION MAKING (SPUDM)

Submission deadline: March 15th , 2017

The European Association for Decision Making invites submissions for presentations, posters and/or symposia for its 2017 Subjective Probability, Utility and Decision Making (SPUDM 26) Conference to be held at the Technion – the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, from Sunday August 20 to Thursday August 24, 2017.

All submissions must be made electronically.
Invited keynote speakers:
Alvin E. Roth, Stanford University, USA
Debora Estrin, Cornell Tech, USA
Ido Erev, Technion, Israel
Presidential Address by EADM president:
Andreas Glöckner, Göttingen University, Germany

The conference focus will combine traditional topics as well as new directions in Judgment and Decision Making research.

More details and submission guidelines are available on the conference website — https://spudm2017.net.technion.ac.il/call-for-papers/

For further assistance please contact the organizing committee at Spudm26@idc.ac.il<mailto:Spudm26@idc.ac.il>

We are looking forward to welcoming you in Haifa.

SPUDM 26 organizing committee:

* Shahar Ayal, IDC Herzelia
* David Budescu, Fordham University
* Ido Erev, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology
* Andreas Glöckner, Göttingen University
* Ilana Ritov, Hebrew University
* Shaul Shalvi, University of Amsterdam
* Richárd Szántó, Corvinus University of Budapest

2017 FABBS AWARD WINNER FROM THE SOCIETY FOR JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING

FABBS (Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences) just announced the 2017 Early Career Impact Award winners. This award is presented to early career scientists of FABBS member societies during the first 10 years post-PhD and recognizes scientists who have made major contributions to the sciences of mind, brain, and behavior. The goal is to enhance public visibility of these sciences and the particular research through the dissemination efforts of the FABBS in collaboration with the member societies and award winners.

For the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, the 2017 winner is Edward Cokely of the University of Oklahoma.

Dr. Edward Cokely has made significant advances in the psychology of skilled decision making, with applications in risk communication and adaptive technology. He is known for his research on cognitive abilities and inclusive decision education. In addition, Dr. Cokely’s research has advanced frontiers in our scientific understanding of simple, effective decision aids, visual aids, and training programs including adaptive computerized tutors to improve high-stakes decision making among diverse and vulnerable individuals who vary widely in ability, proficiency, education, background, and country of residence.

A passage from one of his papers shows his conviction that people, regardless of background, can improve their decision making ability:

For more than a century people have used theoretical assumptions to argue that general intelligence constrains decision making quality, causing substantial differences in human potential and outcomes…[with implications for] the structure of our policies, rights, institutions, and welfare practices. […] Setting aside moral and ethical outrage, at the heart of the scientific issue is a basic question about whether or not abilities actually constrain decision quality. [Our] experiments, training programs, and cognitive process tracing studies provide converging causal evidence [that] skilled decision making generally does not require high-levels of fluid intelligence or special abstract reasoning capacities… [With the right support] nearly anyone has the ability to make well-informed and skilled decisions so long as they understand risks.

In his writings, Dr. Cokely discusses how these findings present both research opportunities and substantial scientific responsibilities (for example, all else equal, informed decision making is an ethical imperative). This foundation serves as the scientific and ethical basis for his efforts to nurture risk literacy and support science for informed decision making.

In fewer than ten years after earning his PhD, Dr. Cokely has published over 60 papers which have been cited over 2,000 times. In the same time period, he has mentored 10 PhD students and secured more than $2,000,000 dollars in funding for research and student support. His research has been featured in Scientific American, New Scientist Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, and other media outlets such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal Online. He’s received several major awards including a 2013 National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the APA’s Award for Best Research Paper in Applied Experimental Psychology (2012).

Dr. Cokely has developed the Berlin Numeracy Tests and associated outreach efforts via www.RiskLiteracy.org, a multinational collaborative informed decision making project. Today, more than 100,000 people from 166 countries have taken one of the Berlin Numeracy Tests. Hundreds of recent studies by research groups from business, psychology, economics, political science, law, medicine, social work, forestry, and other fields have published decision making research using the Berlin Numeracy Tests, improving our understanding of the needs and processes of diverse decision makers in more than 50 countries.

Dr. Cokely serves as Presidential Research Professor and Associate Professor of Psychology, and co-founding faculty of the National Institute for Risk & Resilience, at the University of Oklahoma and was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development after earning his doctorate in psychology from Florida State University.

CALL FOR PAPERS

Following the success of the ECBE Conferences in 2015 and 2016 we are happy to announce that the 3rd Early-Career Behavioral Economics Conference will take place in Pittsburgh on the 16-17 of June, 2017. The conference will be sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation and hosted by The Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).

The Russell Sage Foundation is the principal American foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences and was an early force in the development of behavioral economics. For more information, visit www.russellsage.org.

Objective

The goal of this conference is to provide a platform for researchers who are at an early stage of their academic career to present their research and receive feedback from peer discussants. The conference seeks to promote the development of a community of early-career behavioral economics researchers. George Loewenstein (CMU) and Linda Babcock (CMU) will be keynote speakers.

Eligibility

Any early-career behavioral economist is invited to apply. This includes graduate students, Post-Doctoral researchers, and Assistant Professors who received their Ph.D. after Spring 2012. We will select 20 applicants to present papers, and 20 additional applicants to serve as discussants. We encourage applications from early-career researchers who have not participated in ECBE.

Costs

There is no conference fee. Conference meals will be covered for invited participants. In cases where financial assistance is not available from a researcher’s university, hotel and economy class travel expenses will be reimbursed for presenters and discussants (up to $1000 for travel from Europe and up to $350 for travel from North America except Pittsburgh). Please note that participants are not eligible for financial assistance if they received financial assistance from RSF for participating in the 2015 ECBE.

How to Apply

To apply, please follow this link

http://rady.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_7TYIIeuF8l9ghGB

and complete the application by January 31, 2017. After completing the online form, you will be asked to email a pdf document which contains (1) an abbreviated CV (max. 3 pages) and (2) the paper you wish to present to ecbe2017@gmail.com. Extended abstracts will not be considered. Please merge these files in the specified order into a single pdf that does not exceed 16 MB. If financial assistance is needed, please indicate this in the application form.

The organizing committee and external reviewers will review the submissions and select the participants in collaboration with Linda Babcock (CMU). Selected participants will be notified by the end of March. For more information, please contact ecbe2017@gmail.com or visit the conference website: https://sites.google.com/site/ecbeconference.

We look forward to receiving your applications.

BE A FELLOW WITH THE OFFICE OF EVALUATION SCIENCES

The Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES) is currently accepting applications for fellowships beginning in October 2017 in D.C. Based at the General Services Administration, OES is a team of applied researchers tasked with building insights from the social and behavioral sciences into federal programs, and testing and learning what works. OES partners with federal agencies to evaluate the effectiveness of new evidence-based interventions on program outcomes and provides agencies evidence to make informed programmatic decisions.

Over the past two years, OES has completed over 30 randomized evaluations with agency partners. OES has made major strides serving agencies and improving federal programs by applying and testing the impact of behavioral insights on a diverse range of agency outcomes. Dozens of agencies have joined this effort, creating innovative partnerships to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in the United States and abroad. OES has rigorously tested insights on diverse agency priorities such as promoting retirement security, responding to climate change, assisting job seekers, helping families get health coverage and stay healthy, and improving the effectiveness and efficiency of Government operations. For more information on our portfolio to date, go to https://oes.gsa.gov/work/.

Fellowship Details
OES is accepting applications for full-time fellowships starting in October 2017 based at the General Services Administration in Washington DC. Most Fellows join OES on-loan from academic, nonprofit, or government offices on either a reimbursable or non-reimbursable basis, typically for one to two years. Fellows have come from a variety of universities (e.g. City University of New York, Northeastern University, North Carolina State University, Reed College, University of Arizona, and University of Washington), non-profits (such as policy think tanks), and federal departments (e.g. Department of Education, Department of Agriculture, and Housing and Urban Development Department). Other types of federal appointments may be offered on a limited basis.

The OES team combines academic and research expertise with experience implementing and evaluating evidence-based interventions in complex settings. Responsibilities of OES Fellows include:

• Understanding agency objectives and priorities, identifying opportunities to translate findings from the social and behavioral sciences into concrete recommendations.
• Driving implementation on 3-5 projects at a time, including collaborating and communicating with agency partners to ensure that: intervention ideas and the pilot design meet agency goals; field experiments are implemented as planned; and the implications of results are clearly understood.
• Working directly with agency collaborators to design and rigorously test interventions.
• Performing data analyses and interpretation.
• Distilling findings into reports, policy memos, and academic publications.
• Assisting, as needed, on additional projects being managed by other team members.
• Attending weekly team meetings, providing updates on project status, and being generally available to collaborate on and contribute to internal team tasks.
• Representing the team by attending and presenting at internal government and external talks, conferences, and workshops.

Applicant Profile
OES team members must possess a unique set of technical and professional skills. This includes knowledge of at least one field within the social and behavioral sciences, the ability to creatively apply research knowledge within the federal government setting, the ability to design and manage the day-to- day operations of a large operational field trial, and exceptional communication and interpersonal skills

OES is currently recruiting for the following two roles with associated experience:

• Fellows have substantial expertise in the social and behavioral sciences field. Typically they are researchers with a PhD and publication record in a social or behavioral science field (e.g., economics, psychology, political science, statistics, sociology, public policy, business, etc.).
• Associate Fellows are typically pursuing a PhD in the social and behavioral sciences field, have recently completed a PhD or post-doc, or have a Master’s Degree plus two or more years of relevant experience.

Additionally, applicants must possess:

•  General knowledge of applied social and behavioral sciences and specialized knowledge of at least one domain of study within the social and behavioral sciences.
• Ability to think creatively about how insights from the social and behavioral sciences can be translated into concrete interventions that are feasible within specific Federal programs.
• Curiosity and willingness to learn about federal agencies and their unique practical and regulatory constraints.
• Knowledge of evaluation design and analysis strategies, such as randomized controlled trials.
• Statistical competency in at least one data analytic programming language (e.g., R, Stata, Matlab, SAS, Python).
• Ability to effectively explain technical concepts to broad audiences, orally and in writing.Strong and concise writing skills, including under tight deadlines. Excellent project management and organizational skills.
• Flexibility, self-motivation, and the ability to manage multiple tasks efficiently in a team

Preferred qualifications include one or more of the following:

• Significant experience conducting randomized evaluations in field settings.
• Experience working with government programs, policies, operations, and/or data.
• Advanced statistical and data skills, including experience handling large data sets.
• Professional design skills (e.g. interaction design, visual communication design, etc.)
• Expertise in one or more U.S domestic policy sectors.

Application Details
Applicants may apply online via https://oes.gsa.gov/apply/. The deadline to submit is 11:59 p.m. EST Sunday, January 15, 2017. Finalists will be invited to an interview process that will include a writing exercise, up to two stages of interviews, and an in-person research presentation. We expect final decisions to be communicated to candidates by mid-March 2017.

DEADLINE JANUARY 9, 2017

The 55th Edwards Bayesian Research Conference will be held February 16-18, 2017, on the
campus of California State University, Fullerton.

Presentations at this conference may come from any area related to judgment and decision
making and are NOT limited to Bayes theorem or Bayesian statistics.

Submissions are due by January 9, 2017.

We maintain certain traditions that have made these meetings so enjoyable. As Ward Ed-
wards put it:

The atmosphere is informal, the discussion can get intense, and many of the best debates take place during coffee breaks or in the hospitality suite at the end of the day. This conference is a good place to try out your latest, wildest set of ideas on a kindly, knowledgeable, and critical audience.

Hotel rooms will be available at an excellent rate at the Fullerton Marriott, which is across the street from the meeting room.

Visit the conference website for more information.

Questions can be sent to Daniel Cavagnaro: dcavagnaro at fullerton.edu

SOCIETY FOR JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING NEWSLETTER

The quarterly Society for Judgment and Decision Making newsletter can be downloaded from the SJDM site:

http://sjdm.org/newsletters/

Dan Goldstein
SJDM Newsletter Editor

LET’S PUT THAT INTO PERSPECTIVE

The NYT had a nice infographic entitled “The typical American lives only 18 miles from mom“. They’re saying the median distance to mom is 18 miles.

But when you look at the data in greater depth (thanks to the graph in the article, which we reproduce above), it looks like the mean distance is over 200 miles. That’s the crow-flies distance from DC to New York, a 4 hour drive sans traffic. You might say the median is the better statistic, and we agree: relatively few people living on the opposite coast from their parents drive the average up. However, the downside of the median is that it doesn’t let you appreciate how far from their parents a third of the country lives. In the spirit of putting numbers into perspective to improve comprehension, let’s put that into perspective. Values are rounded. Drive times are from online maps and do not include traffic delays or even a single pit stop.

• 1 in 3 lives over 100 miles from mom (New York to Philadelphia, a 2.5 hour drive)
• 1 in 4 lives over 200 miles (DC to New York, a 4 hour drive)
• 1 in 5 lives over 350 miles (DC to Boston, a 7.5 hour drive)
• 1 in 6 lives over 600 miles (DC to Chicago, a 10.5 hour drive)
• 1 in 10 lives over 900 miles (DC to Minneapolis, a 16.5 hour drive)

When the miles are in familiar units, people live farther from mom than it first seems. Also, mentioned in the article,

• A lot of people take care of their parents
• A lot of people’s parents help take care of their kids
• A lot of people are poor or middle class, which increases the chance they’ll care for parents or grandkids
• A lot of people live in super-dense areas

… which also make the surprising stat seems less surprising.

CONFERENCE DATES MAY 21-23, 2017

Abstract Submission Deadline December 15, 2016

Submitting Abstracts

To submit an extended abstract (1 page single spaced pdf with author information), please visit the conference website

http://leeds.colorado.edu/event/bouldersummerconference#overview

and click on the Submit Paper Abstract link:

http://www.colorado.edu/business/events/2017-boulder-summer-conference-consumer-financial-decision-making/submit-paper-abstract

Conference Overview

The Boulder Summer Conference in Consumer Financial Decision Making, now in its 8th year, is the world’s foremost conference for discussion of interdisciplinary research on consumer financial decision-making. Consumer welfare is strongly affected by household financial decisions large and small: choosing mortgages; saving to fund college education or retirement; using credit cards to fund current consumption; choosing how to “decumulate” savings in retirement; deciding how to pay for health care and insurance; and investing in the stock market, managing debt in the face of financial distress. This conference brings together outstanding scholars from around the world in a unique interdisciplinary conversation with regulators, business people in financial services, and consumer advocates working on problems of consumer financial decision-making.

Our goal is to stimulate cross-disciplinary conversation and improve basic and applied research in the emerging area of consumer financial decision-making. This research can inform our understanding of how consumers actually make such decisions and how consumers can be helped to make better decisions by innovations in public policy, business, and consumer education. Please see the 2016, 2015, and 2014 programs on the conference website to see abstracts of research by scholars in economics, psychology, sociology, behavioral finance, consumer research, decision sciences, behavioral economics, and law. Our format allows a very high level of opportunity for conversation and interaction around the ideas presented.

Conference Format

We begin with a keynote session late Sunday afternoon about how consumer financial behavior is influenced by credit scoring and use of credit scores for non-lending purposes. The keynote session will be followed by a reception and poster session. Monday and Tuesday we have ten 75-minute sessions with two related papers from different disciplines, with discussion by an industry or government expert or a scholar from a third field. We begin with financial decision making of consumers in distress because of poor financial decision-making or situational stress. We then turn our focus to more basic processes that guide everyday consumer financial decision-making, both good and bad. Throughout the conference we schedule significant time for informal interaction outside of the sessions.

The conference program committee will select papers for presentation at the conference based on extended abstracts. Selected papers must not be published prior to the conference. Authors submitting an abstract must commit to have a paper that is complete and available for review by discussants one month prior to the conference. Selections will be based on quality, relevance to consumers’ financial decision-making, and contribution to breadth of topics and disciplinary approaches. We consider not just the individual merits of the papers, but how they pair with another submission from a scholar in a different field. The organizers will invite authors of the best papers not selected for presentation at a plenary session to present their work at the Sunday evening poster session.

Registering for the Conference and Booking a Room

There are links on the conference website for booking at the St. Julien Hotel and for registering for the conference.

The conference will be held in the St. Julien Hotel & Spa. We have negotiated very attractive room rates for conference attendees (and families). Please note that the Conference has not guaranteed any rooms, rather they are on a “first come” basis. We encourage you to book your rooms as soon as you can. Boulder is a popular summer destination and rooms go quickly at the St. Julien Hotel.

HERE IS WHAT YOU CAME UP WITH

The author’s daughter’s tool kit

A while back, Decision Science News put out a call on the Society for Judgment and Decision Making email list looking for “tools, methods to improve decision making, outcomes, and information communication / visualization”:

I’m interested in learning about tools and methods people in this community have created to improve decision making, decision outcomes, and information communication / visualization. It would be good to have examples of things that are a) finished, codified b) tested for effectiveness. Bonus points if they are field tested and/or tested for long-term retention

This would include things like:
* Training programs incl. games, videos, procedures, tutorials
* Decision aids, calculators
* Elicitation techniques (e.g. SPIES, …)
* Changes in information format (e.g. frequency formats, …)
* Policies, procedures (e.g. Save More Tomorrow, …)
* Feats of choice architecture (e.g., reordering, ….)

To make the resulting list more useful to the community, it might be wise to structure your submissions like this:

Tool / method name:
One sentence description:
One sentence effectiveness test result:
Relevant cite(s):

Here are the responses we received. If you have more, put them in the comments, but please structure them as suggested above.

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DISTRIBUTION BUILDERS

These tools are similar to the Distribution Builder (*) tool for eliciting probability distributions
(*) Goldstein, Daniel G., Johnson, Eric J. & Sharpe, William F. (2008). Choosing outcomes versus choosing products: Consumer-focused retirement investment advice. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(3), 440-456.

Quentin Andre’s Javascript Distribution Builder: https://quentinandre.github.io/DistributionBuilder

Don Moore and Uriel Haran’s SPIES elicitation tool: http://fbm.bgu.ac.il/lab/spies/spies.html

Charlie Strout’s Javascript Distribution Builder: https://github.com/sevenshadow/DistributionBuilder

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GALLONS PER MILE TOOL

Rick Larrick and Jack Soll created an online GPM (gallons per mile) calculator to help people compare cars/trade ins. http://gpmcalculator.com/

Cite:

Larrick, R. P., & Soll, J. B. (2008). The MPG illusion. Science, 320(5883), 1593.

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DECISION TIME LIMITS

Ian Krajbich writes “By imposing per-decision time limits, we help people divert time from difficult unimportant decisions to easier important ones.”

Effectiveness test result: Time-constrained subjects achieve better objective outcomes (higher earnings) when they have per-decision time limits, compared to when they are left to allocate time to decisions on their own.

Cite:
Oud B, Krajbich I, Miller K, Cheong JH, Botvinick M, Fehr E. 2016 Irrational time allocation in decision-making. Proc. R. Soc. B 283: 20151439. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.1439

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BALANCE BEAM AID FOR INSTRUCTION IN DIAGNOSIS

Rob Hamm writes “The log odds formula for combining multiple independent diagnostic cues corresponds to the formula for combining the impact of equal weights (and helium balloons) placed at different positions on a balance beam. We constructed a demonstration for one medical diagnosis domain (acute chest pain).”

Effectiveness test result: The math works if we make the naïve Bayesian assumption of independent impacts of different pieces of evidence. A small sample of medical students and faculty played with the program and found it reasonable.

Cites:
Hamm RM, Beasley WH, Johnson WJ. A balance beam aid for instruction in clinical diagnostic reasoning. Medical Decision Making 2014; 34(7):854-862 (doi: 10.1177/ 0272989X14529623).
Hamm RM, Beasley WH. The balance beam metaphor: A perspective on clinical diagnosis. Medical Decision Making 2014; 34(7):841-853 (doi: 10.1177/0272989X14528755).

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PACE-O-METER TO IMPROVE PEOPLE’S ESTIMATIONS OF TIME-SAVINGS WHEN INCREASING SPEED

Eyal Pe’er writes: “An enhanced speedometer that presents, alongside regular speed information, the pace of minutes required to complete 10 miles/km at given levels of speed (http://journal.sjdm.org/12/121007/fig2.png)

Effectiveness test result: When asked to estimate time saved when increasing speed (at various levels) participants who received the “paceometer” were correct at an overall average rate of about 58% compared to less than 20% in the control conditions. In another study, similar results were found on driving behavior using a driving simulator.

Cites:
Peer, E., & Gamliel, E. (2013). Pace yourself: Improving time-saving judgments when increasing activity speed. Judgment and Decision Making, 8(2), 106.
Eriksson, G., Patten, C. J., Svenson, O., & Eriksson, L. (2015). Estimated time of arrival and debiasing the time saving bias. Ergonomics, 58(12), 1939-1946.

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PROSTATE CANCER TREATMENT DECISION AID
Maarten Cuypers writes: “Online tool with risk communication and values clarification exercise to support treatment selection in (early) prostate cancer patients”

Effectiveness test result: More knowledge, more value congruent treatment choices, though lower information satisfaction.

Cites:
Cuypers, Maarten, Lamers, Romy, Kil, Paul, Poll-Franse, L. van de, & Vries, Marieke de (2015). Impact of a web-based treatment decision aid for early-stage prostate cancer on shared decision-making and health outcomes: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial. Trials, 16(231)
Lamers, R.E.D., Cuypers, M., Vries, M. de, Poll-Franse, L. van de, Bosch, J.L.H.R., & Kil, P.J.M. (2016). How do patients choose between active surveillance, radical prostatectomy and radiotherapy?: The effect of a preference sensitive decision aid on treatment decision making for localized prostate cancer. Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations

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SIMULATED EXPERIENCE

Emre Soyer writes “A simulation based on a model (e.g., regression), which allows decision makers to enter their inputs and sequentially observe (also graph and/or store) the estimated outcomes.”

Effectiveness test result: In different contexts, participants related easily with the tool, trusted their simulated experience more than their own analyses based on descriptions, and made more accurate judgments about uncertainties.

Cites:
Hogarth, R. M., & Soyer, E. (Winter 2015). Simulated experience: Making intuitive sense of big data. MIT Sloan Management Review, p. 49-54. (sloanreview.mit.edu/x/56215)
Hogarth R. M., & Soyer E. (2015). Communicating forecasts: The simplicity of simulated experience. Journal of Business Research, 68, 1800-1809
Hogarth R. M., & Soyer E. (2015). Providing information for decision making: Contrasting description and simulation. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 4, 221-228.
Hogarth R. M., Mukherjee, K., & Soyer, E. (2013). Assessing the chances of success: Naïve statistics vs. kind experience. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 39, 14-32.
Hogarth, R. M., & Soyer, E. (2011). Sequentially simulated outcomes: Kind experience vs. non-transparent description. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 140, 3, 434-463.
M.A. Bradbury, T. Hens and S. Zeisberger, “Improving Investment Decisions With Simulated Experience,” Review of Finance, published online June 6, 2014.
C. Kaufmann, M. Weber and E. Haisley, “The Role of Experience Sampling and Graphical Displays on One’s Investment Risk Appetite,” Management Science 59, no.2 (February 2013): 323-340.
B.K. Hayes, B.R. Newell and G.E. Hawkins. “Causal Model and Sampling Approaches to Reducing Base Rate Neglect,” in “Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society,” eds. M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz and I. Wachsmuth (Austin, Texas: Cognitive Science Society, 2013.)

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A DIAGNOSTIC SUPPORT SYSTEM (PROTOTYPE) FOR FAMILY PHYSICIANS

Olga Kostopoulou writes “A diagnostic support tool that integrates with the patient’s electronic health record, and presents physicians with diagnostic alternatives (according to patient age, sex, risk factors and current complaint) at the start of the consultation, BEFORE physicians elicit any further information from the patient.”

Effectiveness test result: Presenting family physicians with diagnostic alternatives early on, before eliciting any information themselves, increased diagnostic accuracy both in a study with computer-simulated patients, and in a study with standardised patients (actors).

Cites:
Kostopoulou O, Rosen A, Round T, Wright E, Douiri A, Delaney BC. Early diagnostic suggestions improve accuracy of GPs: a randomised controlled trial using computer-simulated patients. British Journal of General Practice 2015 Jan; 65(630): e49-e54. http://dx.doi.org/10.3399/bjgp15X683161

Kostopoulou O, Porat T, Corrigan D, Mahmoud S, Delaney BC. Supporting first impressions reduces diagnostic error: evidence from a high-fidelity simulation. British Journal of General Practice. In Press.

Note: The tool is still at the prototype stage and has not been field-tested yet. It is based on an ontology of medical diagnostic concepts, and will be open source eventually.

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ANALOGICAL ENCODING

Aba Szollosi writes “We tested whether analogical encoding can foster the transfer from learning abstract principles to improving behavioral performance on a range of decision biases.”
Effectiveness test result: The method might be effective in eliminating biases on tasks where the violations of statistical principles are measured.

Relevant cite(s): Aczel, B., Bago, B., Szollosi, A., Foldes, A., & Lukacs, B. (2015). Is it time for studying real-life debiasing? Evaluation of the effectiveness of an analogical intervention technique. Frontiers in psychology, 6:1120. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01120

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CHEMDECIDE
Richard Hodgett writes about a tool he created to structure complex decision problems. ChemDecide is a suite of software tools which incorporates three Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) techniques: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Multi-Attribute Range Evaluations (MARE) and ELimination Et Choix Traduisant la REalité trois (ELECTRE III). The software has been used for addressing decisions such as route selection, equipment selection, resource allocation, financial budgeting and project prioritization.

Cite: Hodgett, R. E., Martin, E. B., Montague, G., & Talford, M. (2014). Handling uncertain decisions in whole process design. Production Planning & Control, 25(12), 1028-1038.