Strength of Belief Guides Information Foraging

Theories of how people value and search for information share the assumption that beliefs give rise to the perceived value of information. However, few studies have directly addressed the pre-search processes that influence information-foraging behavior. This experiment examined the influence of pre...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2022-03, Vol.33 (3), p.450-462
Main Authors: Illingworth, David A., Thomas, Rick P.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Beliefs
Diagnostic tests
Foraging behavior
Hypotheses
Information sources
Medical diagnosis
Medical students
Search strategies
Short term memory
Simulation
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Summary:Theories of how people value and search for information share the assumption that beliefs give rise to the perceived value of information. However, few studies have directly addressed the pre-search processes that influence information-foraging behavior. This experiment examined the influence of pre-search belief updating on the perceived value of information sources. A sample of college students completed a hypothesis-testing, medical-diagnosis task. The experiment used medical tests with equal objective informative value before unveiling a presenting symptom intended to alter the strength of belief in different disease hypotheses. The observed patterns of test selection suggest that changes in beliefs about disease hypotheses result in systematic and predictable changes in test preference—a notion we refer to as the principle of hypothesis-guided search. We also present a simulation of how pre-search processes (e.g., hypothesis generation and working memory capacity) and task variables (e.g., time pressure) influence subsequent information search.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/09567976211043425