Decision Science News

CAN RECOGNITION HAPPEN WITHOUT RECALL?

An important question to those studying neuroeconomics, as well as those studying heuristics such as the recognition heuristic is whether recognition is just a side-effect of recall, or whether recognition is a separate process. In consumer behavior, we wonder if the brain changes patterns of activation in the presence of recognized brands, and if this primitive recognition is used to make inferences in conjunction with (or instead of) recalled information.

A recent paper in Neuropsychology by Westerberg et al finds, using impairment data, that mere recognition (recognition without further recall) and recollection (recognition judgments made by recalling episodes or source memory) are separate systems. Recollection fails under hippocampus impairment (Alzheimer’s disease) but mere recognition remains unimpaired.

“Recognition can be guided by familiarity, a restricted form of retrieval devoid of contextual recall, or by recollection, which occurs when retrieval is sufficient to support the full experience of remembering an episode…Remarkably, forced-choice recognition was unequivocally normal in patients with MCI (Mild Cognitive Impairment) compared with age-matched controls. Neuropathology in hippocampus and entorhinal cortex, known to be present in MCI, presumably disrupted recollection while leaving familiarity-based recognition intact.”

“In conclusion, the present results indicate that in patients with diagnoses of AD (Alzheimer’s Disease) or MCI [Mild cognitive Impairment], familiarity is relatively preserved compared with recollection. Impaired yes-no recognition in AD and MCI is consistent with prior results suggesting that damage to the hippocampus impairs recollection (e.g., Holdstock et al., 2002). The remarkable findings that forced-choice recognition is relatively intact in AD and entirely intact in MCI provide insights into the critical neural substrates of familiarity signals. Neural processing that supports familiarity may include contributions from perirhinal cortex, from multiple medial temporal regions that are partially damaged but nonetheless can continue to support familiarity, and/or from structures outside the medial temporal region.”

One would assume that in situations where the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex are impaired or cannot do their job for other reasons, recollections (such as remembering where you recognize something from) that might cause someone to decide against using the recognition heuristic might not have an effect.

Reference: Westerberg, C.E., Paller, K.A., Weintraub, S., Mesulam, M.-M, Holdstock, J.S., Mayes, A.R., & Reber, P.J. (2006). When memory does not fail: Familiarity-based recognition in mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease, Neuropsychology, 20, 193-205.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/odelot/254015955/

ONLINE BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH ROUNDTABLE AT ACR

Photo courtesy of Matt Coats (click for video).

Collecting data over the Internet seems like a solution to all an experimentalist’s problems. Responses can be collected from the far corners of the world, from people in all walks of life. Experiments that would take months can now be carried out in days. But ours is not an ideal world. Researchers wrestle with fickle software, challenges to experimental design, and a host of other problems.

Attendees of the Association for Consumer Research conference can attend a roundtable discussion on psychological research on the Internet and how to do it better. The roundtable takes place 8 – 9:30 AM Saturday, September 30th in the Nomeus room of the Renaissance Orlando Resort at SeaWorld, 6677 Sea Harbor Dr, Orlando, FL 32821-8092.

This roundtable gathers together six leading Web-based researchers to share tips and long-run strategies for building, running, and maintaining an online laboratory. The panelists are all experienced Web-based researchers themselves:

• On Amir – University of California-San Diego
• Dan Goldstein – London Business School
• Gerald Häubl – University of Alberta
• Donna Hoffman – University of California-Riverside
• Eric Johnson – Columbia University
• Leonard Lee – Columbia University
• Tom Novak – University of California-Riverside

The topics covered are some burning ones:

• Online lab construction
• Subject recruitment
• Panel management
• Payment
• Fraud
• Data cleaning
• Online experimental design and integrity

Conference attendees of all levels of experience are encouraged to attend.

IMPROVISED TASTES

Ever a students of improvisation, we are happy that Sarah Lichtenstein and Paul Slovic’s new edited volume The Construction of Preference is now out in earth-toned paperback, and that DSN editor’s modest contribution has made the cut.

BLURB
One of the main themes that has emerged from behavioral decision research during the past three decades is the view that people’s preferences are often constructed in the process of elicitation. This idea is derived from studies demonstrating that normatively equivalent methods of elicitation (e.g., choice and pricing) give rise to systematically different responses. These preference reversals violate the principle of procedure invariance that is fundamental to all theories of rational choice. If different elicitation procedures produce different orderings of options, how can preferences be defined and in what sense do they exist? This book shows not only the historical roots of preference construction but also the blossoming of the concept within psychology, law, marketing, philosophy, environmental policy, and economics. Decision making is now understood to be a highly contingent form of information processing, sensitive to task complexity, time pressure, response mode, framing, reference points, and other contextual factors.

CONTENTS
Part I. Introduction; Part II. Preference Reversals; Part III. Psychological Theories of Preference Reversals; Part IV. Evidence for Preference Construction; Part V. Theories of Preference Construction; Part VI. Affect and Reason; Part VII. Miswanting; Part VIII. Contingent Valuation; Part IX. Preference Management.

CONTRIBUTORS
Dan Ariely, Max H. Bazerman, James R. Bettman, Sally Blount, Jerome R. Busemeyer, Melissa L. Finucane, Baruch Fischhoff, Daniel T. Gilbert, Daniel G. Goldstein, Robin Gregory, David M. Grether, Sara D. Hodges, Keith J. Holyoak, Christopher K. Hsee, Sheena S. Iyengar, Ryan K. Jessup, Eric J. Johnson, Joseph G. Johnson, Daniel Kahneman, Kristen J. Klaaren, Daniel C. Krawczyk, Suzanne J. LaFleur, Mark R. Lepper, Sarah Lichtenstein, Douglas J. Lisle, George Loewenstein, Mary Frances Luce, Donald G. MacGregor, Douglas MacLean, Naomi Mandel, Henry Montgomery, Stephen M. Nowlis, John W. Payne, Ellen Peters, Charles R. Plott, Drazen Prelec, Matthew Rabin, Daniel Read, Ilana Ritov, Yuval S. Rottenstreich, Samuel Sattath, David A. Schkade, Jonathan W. Schooler, Eldar Shafir, Dan Simon, Itamar Simonson, Paul Slovic, Cass R. Sunstein, Ola Svenson, Richard H. Thaler, Amos Tversky, Elke U. Weber, Timothy D. Wilson, Yiheng Xi, Frank Yu, Robert B. Zajonc, Jiao Zhang

FROM INTERNET SOURCES, IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER, WITH NO CLAIMS OF A COMPLETE LIST

Applied Econometric Time Series, W. Enders, 1995, New York, John Wiley & Sons.

Elements of Statistical Learning, T. Hastie, R. Tibshirami, and J Friedman, 2001, New York, Springer.

Categorical Data Analysis, (2nd ed.), Agresti, A. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

Methods of Multivariate Analysis, A. Rencher, 2002, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Modern Regression Methods, Ryan, T.P. 1997. New York: Wiley.

Statistical Analysis With Missing Data, (2nd ed.), Roderick J., A. Little, and Donald B. Rubin. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002.

Statistical Methods for Reliability Data, W. Meeker and L. Escobar, 1998, New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Subjective and Objective Bayesian Statistics: Principles, Models,and Applications, (2nd ed.), Press, S. J. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

Testing Statistical Hypotheses of Equivalence, Wellek, S. Boca Raton, Fla.: Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2003.

What are the Chances? Voodoo Deaths, Office Gossip, and other Adventures in Probability, Holland, B.K. 2002. Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

If you’re not a quant, you might want to start with the last one, by Holland.

DEFAULTS DO MATTER

Decision Science News and Eric Johnson have teamed up once again to write a piece for the Financial Times on the suprisingly powerful effect of defaults (even simple software defaults) on decisions, from the routine to the life-changing. Their conclusion? History gets written by default. The piece is called “The daily defaults that change lives” and you can read it here.

LEGERDEMAIN

Last year, DSN was grateful when the eight-figure-endowment Decision Science News Foundation won the bidding war for Decision Science News Tower (pictured). This year, we are pleased to announce that The Foundation has extended additional funds to provide a private domain name: decisionsciencenews.com

News readers who use newsreaders will be glad to know there is a new RSS feed as well:

FIND THE WONDER IN A NUMBER

The story goes that British mathematician G. H. Hardy was visiting the great Indian mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan in the hospital. According to Hardy:

I had ridden in taxi cab number 1729 and remarked that the number seemed to me rather a dull one, and that I hoped it was not an unfavorable omen. “No,” he replied, “it is a very interesting number; it is the smallest number expressible as the sum of two cubes in two different ways.

Regardless of it being a logical fallacy, DSN belives that aping the habits of the great can make one great. Sometimes. So head over to a site where you can learn fasincating facts about numbers and perhaps end up the next Ramanujan.

The site is called coolnumbers.com and is run by Wharton’s Pete Fader a man of both both decision science and marketing. (Now that’s a cool combination.)

LONDON SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS OFFERS DECISION SCIENCE POSITION

There is a Lectureship or Senior Lectureship in Decision Sciences/Operational Research at LSE, but hurry because the closing date for receipt of applications is 18 August 2006.

The Operational Research Group has been established at LSE for over 50 years and has an international reputation in Decision Sciences, Mathematical Programming, and Public Policy. The Group is one of the core groups within the new Department of Management being created at LSE. This position is part of the significant development of research and teaching with new appointments of leading scholars in management. We are looking to appoint an outstanding candidate with research interests in applying Decision Sciences, to join a flourishing group with a unique masters programme in Decision Sciences.

The successful candidate will be able to teach decision analysis, including Bayesian statistics and probability theory, or operational research modelling, on the masters programmes in Decision Sciences and Operational Research, and on the undergraduate degree in Management Sciences. Further details about these courses can be found on the OR Group’s website at

http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/operationalResearch

There is an opportunity for the appointee to collaborate with the established research programme in research centres at LSE such as the Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation, the Centre for Healthcare Systems Analysis and the growing research opportunities the new Department of Management will offer.

This is a tenure track appointment from January 2007.

For a full application pack, please see the instructions of how to apply at

Click to access WebCoverLetter%20for%20Lectureships.pdf

The job description and further particulars of the post are at:

Click to access LEC_05_61fp.pdf

ESCALATION

One time DSN host and all around smart person Dan Gilbert has a typically well-written and insightful piece in the New York Times op-ed section:He who cast the first stone probably didn’t. It’s a topic that doesn’t get much play in the Judgment and Decision Making literature, which is strange because retaliation is a decision.

Photo credit

DECISION SCIENCE NEWS MEME HITS WSJ, SLASHDOT, AND DIGG

DSN reported just two weeks ago that the habit of Netflix procrastination–recently put forth by two DSN writers in Harvard Business Review–found its way into a Newsweek blog.

This week, we report that the same idea has now made the Wall Street Journal Online and picked up by news ranking sites Slashdot and Digg.

DSN is happy to be making the news that is making the news, but next time a little credit, please.