Abstract - Newell, B.R., Rakow, T., Weston, N.J., Shanks, D.R. (2004). Search strategies in decision-making: The success of ‘success’. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 17, 117-137.
Examination of search strategies has tended to focus on choices determined by decision-makers? personal preferences among relevant cues, and not on learning cue-criterion relationships. We present an empirical and rational analysis of cue-search for environments with objective criteria. In such environments, cues can be evaluated on the basis of three properties: validity (the probability that a cue identifies the correct choice if cue values differ between alternatives); discrimination rate (the proportion of occasions on which a cue has differing values); and success (the expected proportion of correct choices when only that cue can be used). Our experiments show that though there is a high degree of individual variability, success is a key determinant of search. Furthermore, a rational analysis demonstrates why success-directed search is the most adaptive strategy in many circumstances.
Tim Rakow - Publications
click to go back to Home page