Abstract
Risk communications often contain uncertainty information associated with technologies, behaviors, medical procedures, etc. To be effective, such messages need to incorporate ideas, images, and logic that will promote comprehension by a lay public. This paper reviews research strategies designed to make explicit the implicit and frequently idiosyncratic elements of lay reasoning about uncertainty. General biases and heuristics are outlined as they may influence the communication process. Empirical data on variables of newly emerging interest are presented as an extension of earlier research paradigms, with special focus on preferences among natural language terms, causal logic, and modalities for the expression of uncertainty. It is suggested that risk communication incorporate multiple ways to communicate the same information.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Tonn, B.E., Goeltz, R.T., Travis, C.B., Phillippi, R.H. (1991). Risk Communication and the Cognitive Representation of Uncertainty. In: Garrick, B.J., Gekler, W.C. (eds) The Analysis, Communication, and Perception of Risk. Advances in Risk Analysis, vol 9. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2370-7_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2370-7_21
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