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Strategies for selecting and evaluating information

Liefgreen, A; Pilditch, T; Lagnado, D; (2020) Strategies for selecting and evaluating information. Cognitive Psychology , 123 , Article 101332. 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101332. Green open access

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Abstract

Within the domain of psychology, Optimal Experimental Design (OED) principles have been used to model how people seek and evaluate information. Despite proving valuable as computational-level methods to account for people's behaviour, their descriptive and explanatory powers remain largely unexplored. In a series of experiments, we used a naturalistic crime investigation scenario to examine how people evaluate queries, as well as outcomes, in probabilistic contexts. We aimed to uncover the psychological strategies that people use, not just to assess whether they deviated from OED principles. In addition, we explored the adaptiveness of the identified strategies across both one-shot and stepwise information search tasks. We found that people do not always evaluate queries strictly in OED terms and use distinct strategies, such as by identifying a leading contender at the outset. Moreover, we identified aspects of zero-sum thinking and risk aversion that interact with people's information search strategies. Our findings have implications for building a descriptive account of information seeking and evaluation, accounting for factors that currently lie outside the realm of information-theoretic OED measures, such as context and the learner's own preferences.

Type: Article
Title: Strategies for selecting and evaluating information
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101332
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2020.101332
Language: English
Additional information: This version is the author accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
Keywords: information search, OED framework; utility functions, inquiry, question asking, strategies, probabilistic reasoning, Bayesian Networks
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Experimental Psychology
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10112043
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