Abstract
This study investigated how people integrate base-rate information with information about the accuracy of a diagnostic test when making judgments about the probability a person will develop a disease. Participants were presented nine vignettes of medical cases with three base-rate levels crossed with three levels of the accuracy of the diagnostic test. Supporting our hypotheses, we found that both the base-rate and test-accuracy information influenced the probability judgments. Moreover, the test accuracy by base-rate interaction indicated that the influence of the accuracy of the test on judgments was conditioned by the level of the base-rate information. In contrast to previous research in which participants tended to neglect base-rate information in favor of case-specific information, this study demonstrates that if the baserate information is seen as relevant to the case, it can have considerable and even greater influence than case-specific information on judgments.
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Preparation of this article was supported by a National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates grant supplement (BCS-9905397) and a National Institute for Mental Health AREA grant (R15 MH63734-01) awarded to the first author. Contributions of the other authors to this manuscript were relatively equivalent so they were listed alphabetically. A portion of this research was presented at the 2003 meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, Vancouver, British Columbia. We appreciate the comments of Renee Magnan, Ernest Park, and Dana Lawrence on an earlier version of the paper.
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Hinsz, V.B., Heimerdinger, S.R., Henkel, J.M. et al. Test-accuracy and base-rate information in the prediction of medical disease occurrence. Curr Psychol 24, 80–90 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-005-1007-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-005-1007-8