Diagnostic Hypothesis Generation and Human Judgment

Diagnostic hypothesis-generation processes are ubiquitous in human reasoning. For example, clinicians generate disease hypotheses to explain symptoms and help guide treatment, auditors generate hypotheses for identifying sources of accounting errors, and laypeople generate hypotheses to explain patt...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological review 2008-01, Vol.115 (1), p.155-185
Main Authors: Thomas, Rick P, Dougherty, Michael R, Sprenger, Amber M, Harbison, J. Isaiah
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bias
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition & reasoning
Cognition. Intelligence
Cognitive Processes
Cognitive psychology
Decision Making
Decision making. Choice
Diagnosis
Environment
Error Patterns
Errors
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Hypothesis Testing
Judgement
Judgment
Learning Processes
Memory, Short-Term
Models, Psychological
Probability
Probability Judgment
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reasoning
Short Term Memory
Simulation
Thinking Skills
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Summary:Diagnostic hypothesis-generation processes are ubiquitous in human reasoning. For example, clinicians generate disease hypotheses to explain symptoms and help guide treatment, auditors generate hypotheses for identifying sources of accounting errors, and laypeople generate hypotheses to explain patterns of information (i.e., data) in the environment. The authors introduce a general model of human judgment aimed at describing how people generate hypotheses from memory and how these hypotheses serve as the basis of probability judgment and hypothesis testing. In 3 simulation studies, the authors illustrate the properties of the model, as well as its applicability to explaining several common findings in judgment and decision making, including how errors and biases in hypothesis generation can cascade into errors and biases in judgment.
ISSN:0033-295X
1939-1471
DOI:10.1037/0033-295X.115.1.155