Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.

Classical decision theory predicts that people should be indifferent to information that is not useful for making decisions, but this model often fails to describe human behavior. Here we investigate one such scenario, where people desire information about whether an event (the gain/loss of money) w...

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Main Authors: Emma Pierson, Noah Goodman
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2014-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4245129?pdf=render
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spelling doaj-e43c61fb7c8f4029954e499cc380afb82020-11-25T01:26:18ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032014-01-01911e11334210.1371/journal.pone.0113342Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.Emma PiersonNoah GoodmanClassical decision theory predicts that people should be indifferent to information that is not useful for making decisions, but this model often fails to describe human behavior. Here we investigate one such scenario, where people desire information about whether an event (the gain/loss of money) will occur even though there is no obvious decision to be made on the basis of this information. We find a curious dual trend: if information is costless, as the probability of the event increases people want the information more; if information is not costless, people's desire for the information peaks at an intermediate probability. People also want information more as the importance of the event increases, and less as the cost of the information increases. We propose a model that explains these results, based on the assumption that people have limited cognitive resources and obtain information about which events will occur so they can determine whether to expend effort planning for them.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4245129?pdf=render
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Emma Pierson
Noah Goodman
spellingShingle Emma Pierson
Noah Goodman
Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Emma Pierson
Noah Goodman
author_sort Emma Pierson
title Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.
title_short Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.
title_full Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.
title_fullStr Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.
title_full_unstemmed Uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.
title_sort uncertainty and denial: a resource-rational model of the value of information.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2014-01-01
description Classical decision theory predicts that people should be indifferent to information that is not useful for making decisions, but this model often fails to describe human behavior. Here we investigate one such scenario, where people desire information about whether an event (the gain/loss of money) will occur even though there is no obvious decision to be made on the basis of this information. We find a curious dual trend: if information is costless, as the probability of the event increases people want the information more; if information is not costless, people's desire for the information peaks at an intermediate probability. People also want information more as the importance of the event increases, and less as the cost of the information increases. We propose a model that explains these results, based on the assumption that people have limited cognitive resources and obtain information about which events will occur so they can determine whether to expend effort planning for them.
url http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC4245129?pdf=render
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AT noahgoodman uncertaintyanddenialaresourcerationalmodelofthevalueofinformation
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