School of Computer Science, University College Dublin.
Department of Theoretical Physics, National University of Ireland.
Psychol Rev. 2019 Apr;126(3):437-450. doi: 10.1037/rev0000130. Epub 2019 Jan 24.
When presented with 2 samples (a smaller sample from a Minority population and a larger sample from a Majority population), where some rare or frequent features occur at exactly the same rate in both samples, people reliably associate the rare feature with the Minority population and the frequent feature with the Majority population. This pattern is referred to as "illusory correlation," reflecting the standard assumption that such associations are fundamentally irrational. In this article we show that this assumption is incorrect, and demonstrate that this pattern of association linking rare features with the Minority and frequent features with the Majority (given a sample where those features occurred at the same proportion in both categories, and no further information) is in fact correct and follows a result in epistemic probability theory known as the "Rule of Succession." Building on this result, we present a new computational model of frequency-based illusory correlation, based on the Rule of Succession. We also discuss the implications of the Rule of Succession for our understanding of various other cognitive biases. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
当呈现两个样本（一个来自少数群体的较小样本和一个来自多数群体的较大样本），其中一些稀有或常见的特征在两个样本中以完全相同的频率出现时，人们会可靠地将稀有特征与少数群体相关联，将常见特征与多数群体相关联。这种模式被称为“虚幻相关”，反映了这样一种标准假设，即这种关联从根本上说是不合理的。在本文中，我们表明这种假设是不正确的，并证明了这种将稀有特征与少数群体相关联，将常见特征与多数群体相关联的关联模式（在样本中，这些特征在两个类别中的比例相同，且没有其他信息）实际上是正确的，并且遵循了认知概率理论中的一个结果，称为“后继规则”。基于这一结果，我们提出了一种基于后继规则的基于频率的虚幻相关的新计算模型。我们还讨论了后继规则对我们理解各种其他认知偏差的影响。（PsycINFO 数据库记录（c）2019 APA，保留所有权利）。
