ArticleFrontiers in psychology2015
Natural frequencies improve Bayesian reasoning in simple and complex inference tasks.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed.
- Risk expression using likelihood ratios and natural frequencies in Bayesian inference tasks-a preregistered randomized-controlled crossover trial.BMC medical education · 2025Trial
- Natural frequency tree- versus conditional probability formula-based training for medical students' estimation of screening test predictive values: a randomized controlled trial.BMC medical education · 2024Trial
- Game-based learning to improve diagnostic accuracy: a pilot randomized-controlled trial.Diagnosis (Berlin, Germany) · 2024Trial
- Another chance for good reasoning.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2017Trial
- Explaining success in Bayesian reasoning with the adaptive toolbox and expertise.Psychonomic bulletin & review · 2026Review
- A mental model of obesity: comparing expert and public perceptions in Ireland, the UK, and the US.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2026Article
- Partisan differences in healthcare decision-making: Evidence from a vaccine experiment.PloS one · 2026Article
- The impact of problem domain on Bayesian inferences: A systematic investigation.Memory & cognition · 2024Article
- How general is the natural frequency effect? The case of joint probabilities.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- [The Diagnostic Test: Goodness, Characteristics, and Interpretation: Under the Impact of the Corona Pandemic and Different SARS-CoV-2 Tests].Gesundheitswesen (Bundesverband der Arzte des Offentlichen Gesundheitsdienstes (Germany)) · 2023Article
- Boosting for insight and/or boosting for agency? How to maximize accurate test interpretation with natural frequencies.BMC medical education · 2023Article
- Toward a more nuanced understanding of probability estimation biases.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Article
- Maximizers' Susceptibility to the Effect of Frequency vs. Percentage Format in Risk Representation.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The co-development of personalised 10-year breast cancer risk communications: a 'think-aloud' study.BMC cancer · 2022Article
- Biasing Influence of 'Mental Shortcuts' on Diagnostic Decision-Making: Radiologists Can Overlook Breast Cancer in Mammograms When Prior Diagnostic Information Is Available.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- The Benefits of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Mathematics Education on Issues Around Computation in School.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Reference Dependence in Bayesian Reasoning: Value Selection Bias, Congruence Effects, and Response Prompt Sensitivity.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- When Success Is Not Enough: The Symptom Base-Rate Can Influence Judgments of Effectiveness of a Successful Treatment.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Processing Probability Information in Nonnumerical Settings - Teachers' Bayesian and Non-bayesian Strategies During Diagnostic Judgment.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Representing statistical information in terms of natural frequencies rather than probabilities improves performance in Bayesian inference tasks. This beneficial effect of natural frequencies has been demonstrated in a variety of applied domains such as medicine, law, and education. Yet all the research and applications so far have been limited to situations where one dichotomous cue is used to infer which of two hypotheses is true. Real-life applications, however, often involve situations where cues (e.g., medical tests) have more than one value, where more than two hypotheses (e.g., diseases) are considered, or where more than one cue is available. In Study 1, we show that natural frequencies, compared to information stated in terms of probabilities, consistently increase the proportion of Bayesian inferences made by medical students in four conditions-three cue values, three hypotheses, two cues, or three cues-by an average of 37 percentage points. In Study 2, we show that teaching natural frequencies for simple tasks with one dichotomous cue and two hypotheses leads to a transfer of learning to complex tasks with three cue values and two cues, with a proportion of 40 and 81% correct inferences, respectively. Thus, natural frequencies facilitate Bayesian reasoning in a much broader class of situations than previously thought.
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