Jarvstad Andreas, Hahn Ulrike, Warren Paul A, Rushton Simon K
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, United Kingdom; School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, United Kingdom.
School of Psychology, Cardiff University, United Kingdom; Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom.
Cognition. 2014 Mar;130(3):397-416. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2013.09.009. Epub 2014 Jan 20.
Human high-level cognitive decisions appear sub-optimal (Kahneman, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Paradoxically, perceptuo-motor decisions appear optimal, or nearly optimal (Trommershäuser, Maloney, & Landy, 2008). Here, we highlight limitations to the comparison of performance between and within domains. These limitations are illustrated by means of two perceptuo-motor decision-making experiments. The results indicate that participants did not optimize fundamental performance-related factors (precision and time usage), even though standard analyses may have classed participants as 'optimal'. Moreover, simulations and comparisons across our studies demonstrate that optimality depends on task difficulty. Thus, it seems that a standard model of perceptuo-motor decision-making fails to provide an absolute standard of performance. Importantly, this appears to be a limitation of optimal models of human behaviour in general. This, in conjunction with non-trivial evaluative- and methodological differences, suggests that verdicts favouring perceptuo-motor, or perceptual, systems over higher-level cognitive systems in terms of level of performance are premature.
人类的高级认知决策似乎并非最优（卡尼曼、斯洛维奇和特沃斯基，1982年；卡尼曼和特沃斯基，1979年）。矛盾的是，感知运动决策似乎是最优的，或近乎最优（特罗默斯豪泽、马洛尼和兰迪，2008年）。在此，我们强调不同领域之间以及领域内部在绩效比较方面存在的局限性。通过两个感知运动决策实验来说明这些局限性。结果表明，尽管标准分析可能将参与者归类为“最优”，但参与者并未优化与基本绩效相关的因素（精度和时间利用）。此外，我们研究中的模拟和比较表明，最优性取决于任务难度。因此，感知运动决策的标准模型似乎未能提供绝对的绩效标准。重要的是，这似乎是一般人类行为最优模型的一个局限性。这一点，再加上重要的评估和方法差异，表明在绩效水平方面，支持感知运动或感知系统优于高级认知系统的结论还为时过早。
