Evidence map›Paper›PMID 35660761›Full record

ArticleScientific reports2022

How experts' own inconsistency relates to their confidence and between-expert disagreement.

Aleksandra Litvinova, Ralf H J M Kurvers, Ralph Hertwig, Stefan M Herzog

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Scientific reports, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
5citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

5 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Subjective Confidence as a Monitor of the Replicability of the Response.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2025
    Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Collective Intelligence Increases Diagnostic Accuracy in a General Practice Setting.Medical decision making : an international journal of the Society for Medical Decision Making · 2024
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Aleksandra Litvinova *Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
Ralf H J M KurversCenter for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
Ralph HertwigCenter for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany.
Stefan M Herzog *Center for Adaptive Rationality, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 14195, Berlin, Germany. herzog@mpib-berlin.mpg.de.

Funding

NCI NIH HHS HHSN261201100031C
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

People routinely rely on experts' advice to guide their decisions. However, experts are known to make inconsistent judgments when judging the same case twice. Previous research on expert inconsistency has largely focused on individual or situational factors; here we focus directly on the cases themselves. First, using a theoretical model, we study how within-expert inconsistency and confidence are related to how strongly experts agree on a case. Second, we empirically test the model's predictions in two real-world datasets with a diagnostic ground truth from follow-up research: diagnosticians rating the same mammograms or images of the lower spine twice. Our modeling and empirical analyses converge on the same novel results: The more experts disagree in their initial decisions about a case (i.e., as consensus decreases), the less confident individual experts are in their initial decision-despite not knowing the level of consensus-and the more likely they are to judge that same case differently when facing it again months later, regardless of whether the expert consensus is correct. Our results suggest the following advice when faced with two conflicting decisions from a single expert: In the absence of more predictive cues, choose the more confident decision.

Indexed as

JudgmentHumans

Identifiers

PMID35660761
PMCPMC9166728

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.