Sets or Frequencies? How to Help People Solve Conditional Probability Problems

MORO, R.; BODANZA, G.; FREIDIN, E.

Journal of Cognitive Psychology

Psychology Press

Año: 2011 vol. 23 p. 843 - 857

2044-592X

Since the ’70s, the Heuristics and Biases Program in Cognitive Psychology has shown thatpeople do not reason correctly about conditional probability problems. In the ’90s, however,evolutionary psychologists discovered that if the same problems are presented in a different way,people’s performance greatly improves. Two explanations have been offered to account for thisfacilitation effect: the natural frequency hypothesis and the nested-set hypothesis. The empiricalevidence on this debate is mixed. We review the literature pointing out some methodologicalissues that we take into account in our own present experiments. We interpret our results assuggesting that when the mentioned methodological problems are tackled, the evidence seems tofavor the natural frequency hypothesis and to go against the nested-set hypothesis.