Deck 7: Decision-Making

Question 1

Which statement is not a reason motivating the study of decision making as it relates to human factors?

A) Understanding the types of errors decision makers are prone to making can inform decisions about what information to present to an operator
B) Understanding how the format and order of information influences decision outcomes can be used to optimize the presentation of the information
C) Understanding the types of errors decision makers are prone to making can inform the design of decision aid
D) It can ensure decision makers don't make errors.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

Which of the following statements is correct?

A) Decision errors are a minor concern in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) operations.
B) Decision errors are causal factor in 30% of General Aviation (GA) accidents.
C) Decision errors have been shown to play a minor role in weather related aviation accidents.
D) The decision process is largely immune to training effects.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

Which of the following is not a weakness of Normative models of decision making

A) It prescribes rather than describes how humans make decisions
B) Fails to consider human cognitive limitations associated with working memory, long term memory, etc
C) It does not consider the role of situational factors including time constraints
D) Identifies optimal choices

Answer 3

D

Question 4

The fictional character Sherlock Holmes is an example of

A) Normative decision making
B) Naturalistic decision making
C) Descriptive decision making
D) All of the above

Question 5

The term __________ refers to the overall value of a choice or how much each outcome or product is "worth" to the decision maker.

A) Valence
B) Expectancy
C) Utility
D) Attribute

Question 6

The concept of utility is central to Normative models of decision making. Which normative model acknowledges that the values individual assigns to potential outcomes may be unique and dependent on their particular goals?
A) Expected Value Theory

A) Multiattribute Utility Theory
B) Subjective Expected Utility
C) Objective Expected Utility

Question 7

Decision makers may rely on rules of thumb or heuristics to make decision when

A) Cognitive demands are high
B) Time pressure is great
C) When the number of alternative the decision maker must decide between is large
D) All of the above

Question 8

Sue is buying a car and overwhelmed by the number of cars. To simplify the decision process she decides to eliminate all vehicles that are not trucks. Sue is applying

A) The availability heuristic
B) A compensatory strategy
C) The elimination by aspects heuristic
D) The satisficing strategy

Question 9

John is trying to decide among different cell phones and decides to selection one that is not exactly what he wanted but is good enough. This is an example of

A) The availability heuristic
B) The satisficing strategy
C) A compensatory strategy
D) The elimination by aspects heuristic

Question 10

The availability heuristic refers to the observation that

A) Everything you desperately need is out of stock at the grocery store
B) People diagnose a situation because the pattern of cues is representative of a prototypical example
C) People make certain types of judgments by cognitively assessing how easily the state or event is brought to mind
D) None of the above

Question 11

This approach attempts to identify the decision making process of highly skilled practitioners engaged in real world decision making.

A) Normative decision making
B) Rational decision making
C) Naturalistic decision making
D) Descriptive decision making

Question 12

According to Naturalistic Decision making

A) Experts may use mental simulation to anticipate the outcomes of alternative actions
B) Experts do not engage in complex evaluations of different options, their probabilities, utilities and their products.
C) Experts recognize similarities between current and past events to identify a possible course of action
D) All of the above

Question 13

The systematic flaws and deviations from rational decision making are called

A) Heuristics
B) Shortcuts
C) Dumb
D) Biases

Question 14

The tendency to stay fixated on a particular hypothesis, to continue looking for clues consistent with it is referred to as

A) confirmation bias
B) situational awareness
C) meta cognition
D) none of the above

Question 15

John is watching a football game and cant' believe what just happened-a pass was intercepted by the opposing team. He can't fathom how the player decided to pass because it was so obvious what was going to happen. John is demonstrating

A) Confirmation bias
B) Hindsight bias
C) Availability heuristic
D) None of the above

Question 16

Research suggests that the placement of sales prices on cars or homes may affect the final agreed upon price between the buyer and seller. More specifically, the negotiated price tends to be biased toward the sales price originally posted on the car or house. This is an example of

A) Anchoring
B) Cue salience
C) Availability
D) Confirmation bias

Question 17

The anchoring effect has been shown to be influenced by ______ and the _____.

A) Availability: confirmation bias
B) satisficing: heuristics
C) Cue saliency: primacy effect
D) biases: utility

Question 18

Steve is a software engineer. His manager has asked him to estimate how long it would take him to complete the programing of a cell phone APP. Steve's estimate proves to be overly optimistic. His estimate was likely influenced by

A) Anchoring
B) The availability heuristic
C) The confirmation bias
D) The over confidence bias

Question 19

Payne and Bettman et al., (1988) used a computer to simulate normative and non-normative decision processes under conditions of time pressure. Their research findings show that

A) That normative strategies arrive at decisions faster
B) On average normative strategies produced better decision outcomes
C) The non-normative strategies resulted in decision that were comparable or better than those produced by normative strategies
D) That non-normative strategies were slow to arrive at decisions

Question 20

What is the role of Metacognition in decision making?

A) Metacognition is used to anticipate the effort the decision making task will require.
B) Metacognition allows the decision maker to anticipate the potential accuracy of a particular decision making approach.
C) Metacognitive processes play a critical role in recognizing the appropriate decision-making strategy.
D) All of the above

Question 21

Which of the following statements about expert decision makers is incorrect?

A) Expert's better performance is related to their ability to identify patterns in information that they can associate with information already stored in LTM.
B) The abilities of experts tend to generalize to other domains.
C) Experts are better at identifying task-relevant information.
D) Experts employ different metacognitive strategies for monitoring their progress toward a goal, evaluating their accuracy, and their use of their time and mental effort.

Question 22

Which of the following task characteristics tends to support superior expert performance?

A) Conditions where feedback is delayed or absent.
B) Decisions are about subjective qualities (what is great art).
C) Decisions involve objective determinations (solving mathematical problems).
D) The stimuli and cues vary across time.

Question 23

The performance of experts is limited by

A) Their ability to generate hypotheses
B) Their ability to develop sophisticated decision rules
C) Their ability to identify decision relevant information
D) Their inconsistency in weighting different cues

Question 24

The use of medical aid that confirms a doctors diagnosis by reviewing the patients symptoms and test results is an example of a

A) Expert system
B) monitoring decision aid
C) Critiquing system
D) None of the above

Question 25

The tendency to disregard or fail to search for contradictory information when a computer aid generates options is called

A) Confirmation bias
B) Automation bias
C) Prospective bias
D) Rejection by aspects

Question 26

Medical adherence by older adults may be improved by

A) Explicit instructions
B) Use of external aides including charts detailing when to take certain medications
C) Use of plastic medication organizers
D) All of the above.