1996 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

On the Influence of Cell Weights upon Human Contingency Judgments

Research Project

Project/Area Number	07610064
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	実験系心理学
Research Institution	Utsunomiya University
Principal Investigator	KATAGIRI Masayoshi Utsunomiya University, Faculty of International Studies, Professor, 国際学部, 教授 (60012473)
Project Period (FY)	1995 – 1996
Keywords	Contingency Judgment / Causation / Bias of Judgment
Research Abstract	Former investigations suggest that human subjects do not utilize four cells of 2 x 2contingency table. They may weigh cells defferently. Some data indicate the order of weights of cells are a, b, c, d. Cell a correstponds to the case in which both the antecedent event and the following event occur ; Cell b corresponds to the case in which the antecedent event occurs and the following event does not occur ; Cell c corresponds to the case in which the antecedent event does not occur and the following event occurs ; Cell d corresponds to the case in which neither the antecedent event nor the following event occur. This research investigated influence of frequencies of informaion of four cells upon contingency judgments, by preparing 6 pairs of problems with equal objective contingency but with different frequencies. Data shows that cell a has greater influence than cell d, and cell b has greater one than cell d upon contoingency judgment.