"Toward a general theoretical framework for judgment and decision-making"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4330651/
One of the main insights from decision-making studies is that people tend to overweight small probability events in risky one-shot decisions.
This tendency can explain why, for example, people buy lottery tickets and insurance. However, one might wonder, for instance, why in most
Western Countries driving insurance is compulsory. How many drivers would spontaneously ensure? Why the enforcement of safety rules at the
workplace and of safe medical procedures have become social issues of primary importance or why only a small share of people actually
participate in lotto games on a regular basis ?
Answering such questions, recent experimental studies have shown that in repeated decisions with feedback, that people tend to
underweight small probability events, and behave as if “it won't happen to me”
Please read the article, write and describe what do you think about such occurence, if you would understand your brain as an
"information system" ? Is this a common bug in decission process or built-in function that has its meaning and we only understand it as an anomaly?
How much can we think, that our brains are driven by set of built-in rules? Can we deduct any algorithms from them ?
Can we get any benefit from such function in our every-day decission stream ?
We frequently made generalization to simplify many systems. It is clear we try to put even most complex entity as brain to frame called machine or "system". We try to find algorithms to model it functions. We try to solve this functions in many processes like games, work, life situations and adventures. Is it enough to find general algorithm of one brain or even brains in general? I think it is very difficult assessment because we do not have even any source brain to judge this processes and all scientific research we made using not very different human brain. All we can do is to judge brains decisions in perspective of survive assessment, not compromised by sickness or if it cured from it, or win some competition. In this research we are close to construct artificial brain decision mechanism or artificial brain but it's difficult to say when this happen like in story that when we are in forest we see only trees and it is difficult to say when this forest ends and only when we are close to edge of this forest we can see density of trees in front of our eyes are lower that in middle of our adventure.
ReplyDeleteOf course, you're right, but what if you could imagine that universal information-system rules are applicable for your brain ? How would you understand the meaning of that function ?
ReplyDeleteIt is very dificult to find such system after previous deduction. If you add Einstein relativity theory you would understand what I mean. But does this unviersal function exist? Well most probably does. There must be some ingredient that integreate all information processes. Actually I don't have enough knowladge and tools to describe such system.
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ReplyDeletea. How much can we think, that our brains are driven by set of built-in rules? Can we deduct any algorithms from them?
ReplyDeleteHard to say, we shall see. There are few big project trying to solve this problem, like BlueBrain for example. Personally, I agree that a lot of things may be deduced from learning how the brain works, but where is the limit, I don’t know it. Maybe future AI will know for sure :)
b. Can we get any benefit from such function in our every-day decision stream ?
Probably yes, its obvious that when we make good decisions it’s better for us.
Human behaviour is always an interesting subject. It is surprisingly similar for different people, but usually one pattern do not cover the whole society, there are always exceptions. Even if there is an algorithm for that, it is so complicated, that I am not sure if we ever could find it. Everyone has many variables in life that influences our decisions and actions.
ReplyDeleteI believe we are somehow driven by a set of rules. As all other animals we also have mechanisms that helps us survive, but in the modern world some of them might be not very useful.
In my opinion we can get benefits from knowledge of human decision process. If we are aware of our ability to make irrational decisions we can think about it more and avoid them.
About first question, I can say that after doing the same thing over and over again our brain starts to behave like he would follow some algorithm. For example if you are doing the same thing every day (let say morning before going to work for example breakfast, making the bed) your brain starts to learn some set of rules. After some time he follows his "algorithm", so he is doing some set of rules executing them one by one.
ReplyDeleteI think that we can't get any benefits from this kind of decision making (that I showed you above), because this is very primitive algorithm and I don't think that is the best method to drive you car. :-)
How about if such patterns or behaviours prevent your brain from thinking about small things? there is a very 'strange' law among all big time IT visioners, just to name few Jobs, Zuckerberg, Ellison, who believe there is certain amount of thinking brain can effectively process every day. So they wear the same clothes everyday, just not to waste effort on thinking what to wear this day?! How bizzarly simple it is.. perhaps it's high time to order tens of dark grey Issey Miyake turtlenecks.
DeleteI think there are so many variables and circumstances that it is hard to imagine that there could be one general model. As was mentioned "As a consequence of this approach, it is not always clear which model should be used to predict behavior in a new setting, and maybe a more general theory is needed." At this point I agree with Emilia.
ReplyDelete"How much can we think, that our brain is driven by set of built-in rules? Can we deduct any algorithms from them? Can we get any benefit from such functioning in our every-day decision making process?" It is Hard to guess,. Even if we can get any algorithms from them for sure we have to know whether the decisions that we make are good ones in a long-term perspective. Does it have any capability to respond to changes? For sure we can still learn a lot in this area to get more benefits in our everyday life .
Mother of God...
ReplyDeleteThere are two main species of scientists: theorists and practitioners, me being of latter type. I thought no theorist would ever surprise me. Turns out, I was wrong.
I have nothing more to say, I guess. I will just continue to experiment and do what feels right. I am pretty confident that at the time I will finish my research, theorists will still be thinking on what to do.
Theory is the thing, that brings the ground for experiments. I guess, most discoveries started from the imagination, from the concept. Then it was described scientifically and verified empirically. How do you start experimenting without theoretical base?
DeleteI can append to this discussion a brief digression:
ReplyDeleteDo not forget that the human brain is a "solution" that evolves from many years. Computer science and artificial intelligence are very young. Brain is better then computer, and it can learn by self but most of our knowledge come from school, education system and experience. We can not learn by writing data to our brain as fast as computer. We are learning from experiences, and researches of other people and we base on that.
Our decision depends for example on situation and law. In a production line worker have to learn set of operations to do, and that ensures level of quality.
Computer is a modern calculator, I guess it capabiliteis can't be even comparable to the brain. However what people are creating in the applications, can mimic parts of human brain processes - see Artificial Neural Networks. However, do you see any similarities on let's say philosophical level ? Can we say, that both brain and computer are entities that process information?
DeleteHow much can we think, that our brains are driven by set of built-in rules? Can we deduct any algorithms from them?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion when we do something a lot of times and we do this the same way, our brain do this by algorithms .
Can we get any benefit from such function in our every-day decision stream ?
I think we don't have any benefits for our every-day decision, because every day is diffrent , diffrent situation and diffrent work etc, so we must thinking about decision in day.
But what if human brain collects every day information and use this experience later on, in different situations ? Are we learning to grab an apple, when we already know how to grab a tennis ball ?
DeleteI think that getting to know our decision making processes is a very interesting topic. We can definitely benefit even from thinking about how we are making decisions so we can do it more consciously. In my opinion if we know what kind of personality someone has we can predict most likely behaviors in certain situations.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, that we are already describing types of personality by set of property values (i.e. questions and answers in the psychological survey). Aren't those properties outputs or reflects from brain's processes ? How much do we know about those processes and rules that drives them ?
DeleteThe judgment and decision-making is related with human behavior and not with anything others.
ReplyDeleteThe psychological field of emotion science, originally slow to develop, is undergoing a revolutionary phase that has already begun to impact theories of decision making (Keltner & Lerner 2010, Loewenstein et al. 2001, Loewenstein & Lerner 2003).
The field of emotion and decision making is growing at an accelerating rate but is far from mature. Most subareas contain few competing theories, and many areas remain relatively unexplored. Existing studies can raise as many questions as they answer. The research pathways ahead therefore contain many fundamental questions about human behavior and make decision.
I'm glad to read such conclussion.
DeleteI believe that over the thousands of years our brains had to develop in a way which enabled people to survive minimalizing a potential risk. I think this may be a source of commonly known intuition. Brain learns and gain any knowledge by experiments or by observation. Probably a piece of information is encoded in DNA and also passed on by some sort of tradition or social norms. Brain given all these variables may predict a probability of an occurrence based on for example a frequency in the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteI think that these rules are gradually accumulated and this may make us think that these are built-in.
There are many various algorithms with a constant output – the iron is hot so I will not touch this, and these with various output over the time for example dictated by hormones.
There are benefits from built-in algorithms because we do not waste time on thinking about how to ride a bike as well we do not spend time on thinking about how to react. These reactions may be based on some social norms which are built-in algorithms.
Actualy there was a research by Benjamin Libet on consciousness and performing actions, you can read about it on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet
ReplyDeleteAccording to Libet we have no free will and our brain initializes our actions by itself.
What do you think about this conclusion?
I assume that the human brain learns, creating links between events. we are not able to capture that now we use the rules of thumb and now another. The human brain is a big mystery and a challenge for researchers. I think that the brain can be described algorithms but it is difficult, in life there are a lot of variables. Sometimes we say that someone makes illogically - in my opinion are those variables.
ReplyDeleteIf I had the time to sit down and calculate the probability of every outcome of an event that I attend I would certainly do it to find out what is more beneficial to me and minimize costs/risk. However nobody has the time to do that so the brain figured out a way of performing some more or less accurate predictions in a much shorter time. This mechanism usually works in the short run but fails in the long run. It all depends from the number of variables and complexity of their relations. The brain likes short-cuts so it usually doesn't bother with the level of accuracy for those calculations, so when it predicts that the probability of an outcome is low it equals its to 0.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion it's hard to find certain patterns. We are different, raised in different environments. I'm always buying insurance for example, even travel ones, why? Because I feel safer and even I never had to use them, I'm still buying it. Just to be prepared for inevitable. Of course you can make a lot of algorithms that can try to predict certain situations, but still even on enourmus amount of data they won't predict it correctly every single time. And for sure my brain is driven by set of built-in rules, you can't avoid it.
ReplyDeletea. How much can we think, that our brains are driven by set of built-in rules? Can we deduct any algorithms from them?
ReplyDeleteEverybody has such rules and everyones brain is using some kind of alhorithms in most cases. Both of this things are developed overy our lives. Probably there is a lot of people that in some cases react in very similar or almoust same way, but I don't think that you find anybody that is getting to same result using same thinking process. We all are individuals and we have our own perspective.
b. Can we get any benefit from such function in our every-day decision stream ?
A good decision is always a benefit :)
I totally disagree with the conclusion: “the contribution of neuroscience will be crucial in pinpointing and clarifying the physical processes”. In that perspective it's only matter of time, when science will shed light on unconscious decision making process. Maybe the judgment process is taking place before and without conscious presence, only chemical calculation in brain makes decision, not (like a lot of people believe) free will. In that point of view all human action are determined by past experience defined in brain as often used pattern of neurons. It's really sad conclusion and hopefully in my opinion impossible to confirm. Human mind are the most complex computer in the known universe and I think there are no easy answers about decision making process.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion our brain is being tuned constantly. All that built-in functions are something we have acquired in life. I don't think that is possible to describe them in the form of algorithm. Examples like buying a lottery ticket are much more complex - there are plenty of factors that affect decision making process.
ReplyDeleteCan we get any benefit from such function in our every-day decision stream? There is no simple answer. Some of subconscious reactions and behaviours are good for us, some of them can bring rather problems than profits.
I think there is a certain analogy, but there are many factors that can interfere with it. And in my opinion it is the least predictable.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a certain analogy, but there are many factors that can interfere with it. And in my opinion it is the least predictable.
ReplyDeleteHuman brain evolved to handle day-to-day situations, most of the times doing outstanding job at what its supposed to.
ReplyDeleteWe humans look for patterns and consistencies, and therefor we omit and neglect rare possibilities not to overcomplicate things. This is erroneous in some situations, and lotteries and casinos exploit that.
Fun fact. Did you know, that in some muslim countries traditional (for us) insurance is illegal? reason being that insurance is a type of gambling, and therefore immoral.