Precision and Accuracy of Judgmental Estimation

Whereas probabilistic calibration has been a central normative concept of accuracy in previous research on interval estimates, we suggest here that normative approaches for the evaluation of judgmental estimates should consider the communicative interaction between the individuals who produce the judgments and those who receive or use them for making decisions. We analyze precision and error in judgment and consider the role of the accuracy‐informativeness trade-oA (Yaniv and Foster, 1995) in the communication of estimates. The results shed light on puzzling findings reported earlier in the literature concerning the calibration of subjective confidence intervals. * c 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  Robin M. Hogarth,et al.  Judgmental Versus Statistical Prediction: Information Asymmetry and Combination Rules , 1993 .

[2]  Ilan Yaniv.  Weighting and Trimming: Heuristics for Aggregating Judgments under Uncertainty , 1997 .

[3]  Janet A. Sniezek,et al.  Confidence depends on level of aggregation , 1991 .

[4]  Baruch Fischhoff,et al.  Calibration of Probabilities: The State of the Art , 1977 .

[5]  M. Bar-Hillel,et al.  How alike is it versus how likely is it: A disjunction fallacy in probability judgments. , 1993 .

[6]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Training for calibration. , 1980 .

[7]  A. Tversky,et al.  Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases , 1974, Science.

[8]  J. Frank Yates,et al.  Judgment and Decision Making , 1990 .

[9]  D. A. Seaver,et al.  Eliciting subjective probability distributions on continuous variables , 1978 .

[10]  A. Tversky,et al.  Extensional versus intuitive reasoning: the conjunction fallacy in probability judgment , 1983 .

[11]  B. Fischhoff,et al.  Calibration of probabilities: the state of the art to 1980 , 1982 .

[12]  Robert H. Ashton,et al.  Aggregating Subjective Forecasts: Some Empirical Results , 1985 .

[13]  Dean P. Foster,et al.  Graininess of judgment under uncertainty: An accuracy-informativeness trade-off , 1995 .

[14]  A. H. Murphy,et al.  The Use of Credible Intervals in Temperature Forecasting: Some Experimental Results , 1977 .

[15]  J. Frank Yates,et al.  Probabilistic forecasts of stock prices and earnings: The hazards of nascent expertise , 1991 .

[16]  I. Erev,et al.  Verbal versus numerical probabilities: Efficiency, biases, and the preference paradox☆ , 1990 .

[17]  Ilan Yaniv,et al.  Measures of Discrimination Skill in Probabilistic Judgment , 1991 .

[18]  H. Raiffa,et al.  Judgment under uncertainty: A progress report on the training of probability assessors , 1982 .