Probability expression for changeable and changeless uncertainties: an implicit test.

Yun Wang,Li-Lin Rao,Shu Li,Xue-Lei Du

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01313

Abstract

“Everything changes and nothing remains still.”We designed three implicit studies to understand how people react or adapt to a rapidly changing world by testing whether verbal probability is better in expressing changeable uncertainty while numerical probability is better in expressing unchangeable uncertainty. We found that the “verbal-changeable” combination in implicit tasks was more compatible than the “numerical-changeable” combination. Furthermore, the “numerical-changeless” combination was more compatible than the “verbal-changeless” combination. Thus, a novel feature called “changeability” was proposed to describe the changeable nature of verbal probability. However, numerical probability is a better carrier of changeless uncertainty than verbal probability. These results extend the domain of probability predictions and enrich our general understanding of communication with verbal and numerical probabilities. Given that the world around us is constantly changing, this “changeability” feature may play a major role in preparing for uncertainty.

Highlights

Uncertainty exists in many aspects of our daily lives; we use probability predictions to mitigate and prepare for uncertain events
We found that the combination between an inanimate object and numerical probability was more compatible than the combination between an inanimate object and verbal probability in the scenario that did not use Arabic numerals
This finding implies that participants closely associate the uncertainty of animate objects with verbal probability expression and that there is a close relationship between the uncertainty of inanimate objects and numerical probability

Summary

Introduction

Uncertainty exists in many aspects of our daily lives; we use probability predictions to mitigate and prepare for uncertain events. Buddhism views life as a dynamic and ever-changing process, in which beings experience a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible life forms (Keown, 2000) In this dynamic process, individuals’ fate changes according to their karma (the actions or deeds conducted by an individual in their life). The AlJabriyyah sect of Islam believes that everything in the world is preordained and nothing can happen unless permitted by Allah, i.e., the fate of an individual has been predetermined and cannot be changed by free will. Despite this belief, people will not have knowledge about future events until such events occur. Even if our lives have been predetermined and are changeless, the future is still uncertain

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Conclusion