What is the role of What is the role of recognition in recognition in decision making? decision making? Ben Newell University College London & Centre for Economic Learning & Social Evolution Acknowledgements: David Shanks, Nicola Weston, Tim Rakow Funding: ESRC, Leverhulme Trust
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What is the role of recognition in decision making? Ben Newell University College London & Centre for Economic Learning & Social Evolution Acknowledgements:
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What is the role of recognition What is the role of recognition in decision making?in decision making?
Ben NewellUniversity College London
&
Centre for Economic Learning & Social Evolution
Acknowledgements: David Shanks, Nicola Weston, Tim Rakow Funding: ESRC, Leverhulme Trust
Role of recognition in a cue-Role of recognition in a cue-learning tasklearning task
Previous work examined empirical evidence for building blocks of fast & frugal heuristics (e.g., search, stopping, decision rules) in menu-based tasks
Natural extension – examine evidence for fundamental ‘building block’ – the use of recognition
What do we mean by recognition?What do we mean by recognition?
Distinction between the truly novel and the previously experienced
E.g. nonwords – “prache”, “elbonics”Repetition of nonwords makes them
recognisable How much ‘weight’ is placed on simple
recognition?
Status of Recognition Information
Proportion of trials on which
recognized company chosen
Proportion of trials on which
advice is purchased
Special RH = RL RH = RL < NR
Consistent with other cues
RH > RL NR = RH < RL
RH = Recognition High (recognition best predictor of company performance) RL = Recognition Low (recognition poorest predictor of company performance) NR = No Recognition (Free advisor informational equivalent of RH)
Choices in accord with recognitionChoices in accord with recognition
Adaptive, non-compensatory, “all or nothing” use of recognition – “no other information is searched for”
Cities task with football team informationWhen is such a rule applied? What are
the consequences…..?
“Paying for the name…….”
Paying for the name…..Paying for the name…..
Hoyer & Brown (1990)– 3 brands of peanut butter, – “Aware group”:1 known, 2 unknown brands– 5 trials, opportunity to sample after each choice
Support for use of brand recognition in choice of peanut butter (DVD’s, computers, cars…….??)
% of participants choose known brand
Explicit (sole) use of brand awareness
‘heuristic’
Trial 1 93.5% 60%
Trial 5 74.5% 17%
Paying for the name…..Paying for the name…..
Hoyer & Brown (1990) contd…. Comparison with “No Awareness” group Significantly more sampling of brands in No Awareness group AND Awareness/quality-difference manipulation showed:
Reliance on Brand Awareness heuristic led to decreased search and final choice of inferior alternative
% of participants chose high quality brand when in an ‘unknown brand’ jar
Brand Awareness 20%
No Awareness 59%
““A good name is better than A good name is better than riches” (?)riches” (?)
Borges et al. (1999) – can “ignorance” beat the stock market? 180 German lay-people recognition of German stocks 6 month return on DAX 30: Dec 1996 – Jun 1997
Result replicated in 6 out of 8 tests Conclusion – ignorance can beat the stock market or big firms
do well in strong bull (up) markets?
Market Index Rec > 90% Rec < 10%
+34% +47% +13%
““A good name is better than A good name is better than riches” (?)riches” (?)
Boyd (2001) – test in a down or ‘bear market’ 184 US students recognition of 111 companies randomly
selected from Standard & Poor’s 500 6 month return: June 2000 – December 2000
No evidence to support use of recognition heuristic in a ‘bear’ market
Borges et al result a ‘big firm’ effect?
Market Index Rec > 90% Rec < 10%
-4.54% -14.75% +16.27%
““A good name is better than A good name is better than riches” (?)riches” (?)
Rakow (2002) – further test in a strong market 53 UK students recognition of 30 companies in Italian Mib 30 8 week return: October – December 2002 Compared recognition portfolios, anti-recognition portfolios and
expert portfolio with market index
Only 7 out of 53 recognition portfolios outperformed market index How robust is recognition heuristic as an investment tool?
Market Index Expert Recognition Portfolio
Anti-Recognition Portfolio
+21.0% +21.0% +13.3% +26.2%
When will recognition be When will recognition be accurate…?accurate…?
It depends on the domain…..
f(n) = 2(n / N) (N - n / N -1) + (N – n / N) (N – n – 1 / N – 1) ½ + (n / N) (n – 1 / N – 1)
f(n) = proportion correct inferences
= recognition validity
=knowledge validity
N = reference class of objects
n = recognized objects
(fast and frugal?)
Deliberate or automatic?Deliberate or automatic?
Automatic ‘feeling of familiarity’ + deliberate application of heuristic?
“I recognise it so I’ll choose it” – deliberate selection and use of a heuristic from the toolbox? (cf., Kahneman & Frederick, 2002)
Recognition + “relevance check”. Enron?
ConclusionsConclusions
Cue learning: recognition treated like other cues in the environment
Consumer research:Exploitation of reliance on recognition
Stock market investment: ‘big firm’ rather than recognition effect – how generalisable?
Where to next?Where to next?
Further tests of use of recognition in memory-based inference
Cost/benefit effects on use of recognition
Discussion of adaptive/maladaptive use of recognition
Further specification of the domains in which the ‘recognition heuristic’ applies