Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs in Sample-Based Judgment and Choice

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Klaus Fiedler (†)
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology ; General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2020 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 437923996

• Final Report Year: 2024

Final Report Abstract

The basic tenet of so-called sampling approaches to judgment and decision making is that accuracy and rationality of reasoning are to a considerable extent pre-determined by the quantity and quality of the information sampled in the environment. Of crucial importance in dealing with sample-based decision making is the regulation of speed-accuracy tradeoffs. The results obtained in the present project, in a series of experiments and Monte-Carlo simulations, demonstrate that speed dominates accuracy in sample-based choices. When both speed and accuracy are mapped on sample size (n), speed (number of choices completed in a given period of time) decreases linearly with n whereas accuracy increases in a much weaker, sublinear fashion. The failure to understand this mathematical fact, due to metacognitive myopia, massively reduces the payoff gained by decision makers. Participants fail to understand the speed-accuracy advantage, even when extensive feedback and a variety of experimental manipulations highlight the dominance of speed over accuracy.

Publications

• Biased preferences through exploitation: How initial biases are consolidated in reward-rich environments.. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(10), 1855-1877.
  Harris, Chris; Fiedler, Klaus; Marien, Hans & Custers, Ruud
  
• Active and recursive - A sampling approach to judgements and decisions. Symposium at SPUDM - Bi-Annual General Meeting of the European Association for Decision Making
  McCaughey, L.
  
• Quo Vadis, Methodology? The Key Role of Manipulation Checks for Validity Control and Quality of Science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 16(4), 816-826.
  Fiedler, Klaus; McCaughey, Linda & Prager, Johannes
  
• The theoretical beauty and fertility of sampling approaches. Small- Group Sampling Conference Heidelberg.
  Fiedler, K.
  
• Origins of metacognitive myopia: You cannot not learn from sampled information. Invited presentation colloquium of the Cornell University.
  Fiedler, K.
  
• The active information sampler – Information sampling approaches to judgement and decision making. Symposium auf der Tagung der experimentell arbeitenden Psychologen (TeaP).
  McCaughey, L.
  
• Toward stronger tests of rationality claims: Spotlight on the rule of succession.. Decision, 9(3), 195-211.
  Fiedler, Klaus; Salmen, Karolin & Prager, Johannes
  
• Adapting information search through subjective confidence and accumulated evidence. How agents’ cognitive processes shape self-determined information search and the resulting judgments and decisions. Symposium auf der Tagung der experimentell arbeitenden Psychologen (TeaP).
  McCaughey, L.; Prager, J. & Fiedler, K.
  
• Insecurity can be Beneficial – Reflections on Adaptive Strategies for Diverse Tradeoff Settings. In J.P. Forgas, Crano, W.D. & Fiedler, K. (2023) (Eds.), Insecurity. New York: Routledge.
  Fiedler, K. & McCaughey, L.
  
• Metacognitive Myopia: A Major Obstacle on the Way to Rationality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32(1), 49-56.
  Fiedler, Klaus; Prager, Johannes & McCaughey, Linda
  
• Missing out by pursuing rewarding outcomes: Why initial biases can lead to persistent suboptimal choices.. Motivation Science, 9(4), 288-297.
  Harris, Chris; Aarts, Henk; Fiedler, Klaus & Custers, Ruud
  
• On the role of exploitation and exploration strategies in the maintenance of cognitive biases: Beyond the pursuit of instrumental rewards. Memory & Cognition, 51(6), 1374-1387.
  Kasper, Jakob; Fiedler, Klaus; Kutzner, Florian & Harris, Chris
  
• Reversing the cumulative redundancy bias to demonstrate metacognitive flexibility in cue utilization. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 107, 104471.
  Grüning, David J.; Alves, Hans; Mata, André & Fiedler, Klaus
  
• Sampling in Judgment and Decision Making. Cambridge University Press.
  Fiedler, K.; Juslin, P. & Denrell, J. (Eds.)
  
• Speed-Accuracy Trade-Offs in Sample-Based Decisions, Exploit or explore? Trade-offs in sample-based decisions. Symposium at the General Meeting of the European Association of Social Psychology.
  Fiedler, K.; McCaughey, L. & Prager, J.
  
• The Information Cost–Benefit Trade-Off as a Sampling Problem in Information Search. Sampling in Judgment and Decision Making, 334-356. Cambridge University Press.
  McCaughey, Linda; Prager, Johannes & Fiedler, Klaus
  
• The role of confidence in regulating predecisional information search in sample- based decisions. Presentation at SPUDM - Bi-Annual General Meeting of the European Association for Decision Making.
  McCaughey, L.; Prager, J. & Fiedler, K.