Recognizing Randomness  

Oleh:

Diener, Don ; Thompson, W. Burt

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: The American Journal of Psychology vol. 98 no. 3 (1985), page 433.
Topik: Randomness; Event; Decision
Fulltext: 1422628.pdf (1.44MB)

Isi artikel

This study addresses the problem of how an observer decides that a series of events was generated by a random process. Two models of the decision process are contrasted. According to the first of these models, subjects judge a sequence to be "random" only after eliminating all tenable alternative hypotheses for the production of the series. According to the second model, sequences are judged to be random if they are seen as more "representative" of a random process, and nonrandom if they seem more representative of a nonrandom process. Subjects were asked to judge whether members of a set of 50 sequences of "heads" and "tails" had been created by a random process similar to tossing a fair coin. The series differed in patterning, proportion of heads, and probability of alternation. Subjects also provided confidence ratings indicating the strength of their belief that each series was produced randomly. Classification reaction time was examined as a function of confidence ratings. For "nonrandom" judgments, reaction time varied directly with confidence ratings. However, for "random" judgments, there was little relationship between reaction time and confidence ratings. This asymmetry was not found in a control condition in which a different group of subjects was asked to judge whether the series were generated by "tossing a coin which was weighted to come up 'heads' more often than 'tails.' " These results are interpreted as evidence that subjects decide that a sequence is random by eliminating alternative nonrandom hypotheses, rather than by directly recognizing the series as representative of a random process.

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