Effect of values on perception and decision making: A study of alternative work values measures.

Four alternative methods of measuring values were used to examine the impact of work values on perception and decision-making tasks. Perception and its relation to values was assessed using interpretation of ambiguous stimuli. The effect of values on decision making was evaluated using within-subject regression analyses of 20 separate decisions. A total of 103 undergraduate subjects completed values measures and the perceptual and decision-making tasks in three work sessions, each separated by from 2 to 4 days. A rank order measure of values related more consistently to perception and decision making than did other measurement methods. Results also provide some support for a theory of values in which values affect perceptual organization and act as a guide to decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Framework for Measuring the Rationale Clarity of AEC Design Decisions

Current architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) design processes often rely on precedent to resolve complex decisions. However, changes to stakeholder concerns, design methods, and building products devalue much of this precedent knowledge. Project teams need to clearly communicate their decision rationale to develop consensus about design decisions. This study reviews a broad range of relevant theory from decision-based design, decision analysis, decision theory, linguistics, logic, organization theory, and social welfare. Rationale is defined as a set of assertions regarding distinct components (i.e., managers, stakeholders, designers, gatekeepers, goals, constraints, alternatives, and analysis) that support design decisions. Conditions of clarity (i.e., coherent, concrete, connected, consistent, credible, certain, and correct) are also defined. These definitions are used to measure the clarity of assertions, components, and the rationale as a whole. Taken together, this rationale clarity framework (RCF) provides a structured view that enables an objective evaluation of design decision methods.     

Review of Design for decision.

Reviews "Design for decision," by Irwin D. J. Bross (see record 1954-05210-000). Some American statisticians maintain that in Wald's decision theory modern statistics, as a system of inductive logic, has progressed as far beyond Fisher as Fisher advanced it beyond the Pearsonian era. In this book, Bross successfully describes, in a nontechnical style, how statistical tests and estimation relate to the broad modern conceptions of statistical decision and game theory. This he does with frequent humorous, or even facetious asides. The book is singularly free of error, because Bross is capable of dealing with each item at a far more technical level than was required for his present task. I do believe he could have let his readers know, in many instances, that there are effective standard mathematical methods for obtaining decision makers. Also, he fails to clarify the differences between experiments and normative studies with all their critical implications. I highly recommend "Design for Decision" to all who want a painless injection of the simple, basic ideas which have revolutionized modern statistics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Organizing and Evaluating Uncertainty in Geotechnical Engineering

Probabilistic methods are potentially useful in four stages of a typical project: site characterization and evaluation, evaluation of designs, decision making, and construction control. In evaluation of projects, it can be useful to express risk numerically. When uncertainties can be quantified and model errors are understood, reliability theory may be used. Event-tree analysis can be a framework for effectively applying judgment concerning uncertainty. The use of quantified risk in decision making is limited by standards for acceptable risk; good communication with a client is essential. Unless clients or regulators are interested in quantifying risks as part of decision making, engineers will continue to rely on traditional methods. When risks are large and the costs of absolute safety are large, clients are interested in discussing risks. Issues concerning the adequacy of existing structures such as earth dams are stimulating interest in risk assessment, and there will be spin-off from developments in earthquake engineering. More and better examples of applications of probabilistic methods are needed.     

Fuzzy Approach to Prequalifying Construction Contractors

Construction contractor prequalification (CCPQ) is a crucial decision making process to select capable potential bidders and ensure the success of construction projects. The purpose of CCPQ is to guarantee a contractor’s characteristic to meet the construction project’s requirements, which has been established worldwide as a standard practice. However, existing methods, i.e., marking method, subjective judgment method, etc., for contractor prequalification have been inadequate because it is difficult for decision makers to investigate contractor’s capabilities against inexact, vagueness, and qualitative criteria. The objective of this paper is to propose a fuzzy framework-based fuzzy number theory to solve construction contractor prequalification issues, which include decision criteria analysis, weights assessment, and decision model development. Finally, a case study for a tunnel construction project was used to demonstrate the feasibility of fuzzy approaches.     

基于AHP和TOPSIS的充填方案综合评判优选

为对多种充填方案进行评判优选,建立了一种基于层次分析法（AHP）和逼近理想解的排序法（TOPSIS）相结合的综合评判指标体系。以某金属矿4种充填方案的选择为基础,从经济、技术及安全等方面综合考虑影响充填方案的评判指标（充填工艺难易度、充填接顶程度、充填体沉降度和充填体强度等）,将待选方案指标转换成多因素决策矩阵,再通过层次分析法得到各因素权重向量,进而结合逼近理想解的排序法原理构建AHP-TOPSIS的多因素决策模型,得出4种方案的综合优越度。研究结果表明：4种充填方案的优越度分别为36.2%,85.2%,57.6%,32.0%,从而确定第2种方案（废石胶结充填法）为最优。将该优选方案应用于某实际矿山,充填效果良好。应用实践表明该决策模型可为充填方案优选提供一种全新思路。     

Clinical psychophysics: Applications of ratio scaling and signal detection methods to research on pain, fear, drugs, and medical decision making.

Recent developments in psychophysics termed statistical decision theory (or signal detection theory; SDT) and magnitude estimation (ME) are being applied to an increasing variety of previously recalcitrant problems in clinical psychology and medical decision making. The SDT method separates human decision making into a discrimination accuracy measure and a criterion or bias measure. This characteristic is helpful in analyzing confusing situations such as pain assessment, where any number of procedures or manipulations can affect the S's willingness to report pain, but leave unaffected the detectability of pain-producing stimuli. ME methods applied to personality research do not limit an individual's assessment of his or her personal reactions (e.g., degree of anxiety or intoxication) to a range of categories devised by the experimenter but allow each person to construct as sensitive and unique a scale as is required. These methods also show superior agreement with psychophysiological measures of such factors. It is suggested that ME and SDT represent a significant advance over current practices in terms of their greater objectivity and precision, parsimonious use of a single language for the laboratory and the clinic, and potential for the quantification of subtle covert psychological behaviors. Applications of SDT and ME to the assessment and understanding of pain, anxiety, psychoactive drugs, and medical decision making are described. (97 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

露天矿开采境界整体化决策

以兰山采场西帮开采境界整体化决策为工程实例，介绍了通过建立矿床地质模型、岩土工程模型、开采工艺模型、经济评价模型，为开采境界决策的５个分目标提供定性、定量化指标的过程和方法。重点论证了应用效用理论和效用函数实施多目标决策，优选出生产安全、边坡稳定、开采工艺可操作、矿产资源回收多、经济效益好的最佳露天开采境界方案。     

Group and computer-mediated discussion effects in risk decision making.

Managers individually and in 3-person groups made multiattribute risk choices (two investment alternatives, each with multiple outcomes). Two group decisions were reached during face-to-face discussion, and two were reached during (real-time) computer-mediated discussion. In comparison with prediscussion individual preferences, groups' multiattribute risk choices and attitudes after face-to-face discussion were risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses, a tendency predicted by prospect theory and consistent with choice shift and other group extremitization research. By contrast, group decisions during computer-mediated discussion did not shift in the direction of prospect theory predictions. The results are consistent with persuasive-arguments theory, in that computer-mediated discussion contained less argumentation than face-to-face discussion. Social decision schemes were used to evaluate alternative assumptions about the group process. A "(prospect-theory) norm-wins" decision scheme described group choice well in the face-to-face discussion condition, but not in the computer-mediated discussion condition. Another decision scheme, first-advocate wins, which described choices well in both face-to-face and computer-mediated discussions, was explored in a discussion of the role of communication in group decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identifying victims of groupthink from public statements of decision makers.

Tested hypotheses derived from I. Janis's (1972) groupthink analysis of several foreign policy decisions of the American government. Content analyses were performed using the public statements of key decision makers involved in crises for which Janis's case studies revealed or did not reveal evidence of groupthink. Consistent with Janis's theory, it was found that, relative to non-groupthink decision makers, groupthink decision makers were more simplistic in their perceptions of policy issues and made more positive references to the US and its allies (own group). Inconsistent with Janis's theory, groupthink decision makers did not make significantly more negative references to Communist states and their allies (opponents). Methodological and practical obstacles to definitive testing of the groupthink model are examined. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some implications of the new cognitive theory for projective tests.

Projective tests are examined in the light of information theory, decision theory, and computer-stimulation techniques. It is argued that (a) more attention needs to be paid to stimulus variables and that decision theory offers an approach to stimulus definition, (b) a different interpretative tactic is implied by decision theory, and (c) the problem of criterion definition is reopened in the light of decision theory. A simple cognitive model based on computer-simulation approaches is presented in order to demonstrate how an informational analysis might cope with projective responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

决策支持系统理论及其开发策略

决策支持系统作为决策问题系统的一个子系统,它的应用研究引起了人们普遍重视,在理论和技术方面都得到了迅速发展。文章论述了决策支持系统的理论,对开发决策支持系统和策略做了分析和研究。     

Accuracy decomposition and team decision making: Testing theoretical boundary conditions.

The purpose of this study was to examine the implications of accuracy decomposition (D. Gigone & R. Hastie, 1997) for team decision making. Specifically, the authors tested the generalizability of the multilevel theory of team decision making (J. R. Hollenbeck et al., 1995), across various components of accuracy. The authors also tested the generalizability of this theory across different levels of staff-member specialization. Results from a study with 420 individuals in 105 teams demonstrate that the validity of the multilevel theory generalizes across specialization levels but fails to generalize across different components of decision accuracy. The authors concluded that this theory is best conceptualized as a theory of achievement accuracy, rather than mean bias or variability bias. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision theory as a branch of evolutionary theory: A biological derivation of the savage axioms.

This article examines the possibility that the theory of rational choice under uncertainty, including cognate theories of utility and subjective probability, may ultimately be reducible to a basis of evolutionary theory. As preliminary support for this reducibility hypothesis, L. Savage's classic axiomatization of decision theory, utility, and personal probability is derived mathematically from a simple biological population process model. The derivation establishes that the evolutionary constraint of fitness maximization imposed on organismic behavior by the action of natural selection can give rise to formal consequences comparable to the standard laws of rational choice, utility, and personal probability. If the logic of decision is ultimately biological, as the reducibility hypothesis suggests, profound changes may be called for in our perception of the character of rational judgment and in our methods of investigating it. Classical standards of rationality could no longer be regarded as absolute, behavior previously thought irrational might turn out to be biologically rational, and evolutionary process models would become potential psychological hypotheses concerning reasoned behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision rules in the perception and categorization of multidimensional stimuli.

This article examines decision processes in the perception and categorization of stimuli constructed from one or more components. First, a general perceptual theory is used to formally characterize large classes of existing decision models according to the type of decision boundary they predict in a multidimensional perceptual space. A new experimental paradigm is developed that makes it possible to accurately estimate a subject's decision boundary in a categorization task. Three experiments using this paradigm are reported. Three conclusions stand out: (a) Subjects adopted deterministic decision rules, that is, for a given location in the perceptual space, most subjects always gave the same response; (b) subjects used decision rules that were nearly optimal; and (c) the only constraint on the type of decision bound that subjects used was the amount of cognitive capacity it required to implement. Subjects were not constrained to make independent decisions on each component or to attend to the distance to each prototype. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision field theory: A dynamic-cognitive approach to decision making in an uncertain environment.

Decision field theory provides for a mathematical foundation leading to a dynamic, stochastic theory of decision behavior in an uncertain environment. This theory is used to explain (1) violations of stochastic dominance, (2) violations of strong stochastic transitivity, (3) violations of independence between alternatives, (4) serial position effects on preference, (5) speed–accuracy trade-off effects in decision making, (6) the inverse relation between choice probability and decision time, (7) changes in the direction of preference under time pressure, (8) slower decision times for avoidance as compared with approach conflicts, and (9) preference reversals between choice and selling price measures of preference. The proposed theory is compared with 4 other theories of decision making under uncertainty. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

应用层次分析法确定影响巷道掘进效率的因素

层次分析法是一种层次权重决策分析方法。介绍了层次分析法理论以及应用层次分析法的一般步骤和计算方法,并对大屯锡矿影响其掘进效率的工人熟练度、凿岩时间、喷浆时间、管理水平等20个因素进行分析,根据专家打分对各影响因素进行赋值,通过分析计算确定了各影响因素的优先级,从而得出了影响掘进效率的主要因素为凿岩时间、喷浆时间、维修设备时间及管理水平4个因素,其占总权重数分别为32.4%、15.4%、15.4%和12.6%。最终,在此基础上对凿岩、喷浆、设备停修等问题提出了相应的改进措施。     

Different levels of cognitive dissonance, information seeking, and information avoidance.

An experiment with 122 15–17 yr olds tested the curvilinear relationship between the amount of dissonance and the tendency to seek consonant information and avoid dissonant information. The dependent variables, information seeking and information avoidance, were measured separately, and additional data were collected about the perceived probability of revising the decision and about changes of decision certainty. Results show that Ss' preference for information consonant with the decision was highest when they had neither won nor lost large amounts of money. With increasing gains or losses, the opposite tendency emerged. This pattern held both for the number of consonant pieces of information chosen and for the difference in desirability ratings for reading consonant vs dissonant communications. Independent of the amount of money won or lost, more dissonant than consonant information was avoided. Data are explained within the framework of dissonance theory as well as choice-certainty theory. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decision theory analysis of social power.

Discusses the use of decision theory as a framework for clarifying and organizing various conceptualizations of social power. The theory of decision making used suggests that an actor's decision regarding the performance of some behavior is a function of (a) the actor's utility or evaluation of the consequences of the behavior and (b) the actor's subjective probabilities or expectations that the behavior will lead to these consequences. The decisions and behavior of actors in exerting and responding to social power are analyzed in this manner. A number of conceptual issues are discussed, and several theories of social power are examined in terms of concepts and distinctions derived from the decision theory analysis of social power. (71 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)