The effects of numeracy and presentation format on judgments of contingency
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The effects of numeracy and presentation format on judgments of contingency Susan Cooper 1 & Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau 1 # The Author(s) 2020, corrected publication 2020
Abstract Covariation information can be used to infer whether a causal link plausibly exists between two dichotomous variables, and such judgments of contingency are central to many critical and everyday decisions. However, individuals do not always interpret and integrate covariation information effectively, an issue that may be compounded by limited numeracy skills, and they often resort to the use of heuristics, which can result in inaccurate judgments. This experiment investigated whether presenting covariation information in a composite bar chart increased accuracy of contingency judgments, and whether it can mitigate errors driven by low numeracy skills. Participants completed an online questionnaire, which consisted of an 11-item numeracy scale and three covariation problems that varied in level of difficulty, involving a fictitious fertilizer and its impact on whether a plant bloomed or not. Half received summary covariation information in a composite bar chart, and half in a 2 × 2 matrix that summarized event frequencies. Viewing the composite bar charts increased accuracy of individuals both high and low in numeracy, regardless of problem difficulty, resulted in more consistent judgments that were closer to the normatively correct value, and increased the likelihood of detecting the correct direction of association. Findings are consistent with prior work, suggesting that composite bar charts are an effective way to improve covariation judgment and have potential for use in the domain of health risk communication. Keywords Causal judgment . Numeracy . Representational effects
Introduction The covariation or contingency between two events concerns the degree to which they are associated and may be defined in terms of their co-occurrence—that is, the extent to which one event is likely to occur given the presence or absence of the other event. In the absence of expertise or prior beliefs on which to base a conclusion, the evaluation of contingency information can be used to infer or refute a potential causal relationship and obtain an estimate of its strength. Therefore, judgments of contingency are often central to everyday human behaviour and decision-making. For example, a student might The original version of this article was revised: In this article as originally published, there was a minus sign missing between P(E|CC) and P(E|~CC) in the delta P formula which appears on the second page of the article. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-020-01084-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Susan Cooper [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Kingston University, Kingston-upon-Thames KT1 2EE, UK
be interested in whether a revision program boosts examination success before deciding whether to enroll, and a patient with a
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