Complex Decision-making Task Research Articles

The "intelligent workstation" for cell-surface phenotyping based on principles of pattern recognition and image analysis.

Technical advancements in computer hardware and the associated computerized architectures allow the design and fabrication of dedicated, modestly expensive computerized workstations to aid humans in complex decision-making tasks. We refer to these as "Intelligent Workstations" because they accommodate the hypothesis-driven reasoning ability of the user into the system. Concomitant with the rapid developments in computers, diagnostic and therapeutic technologies related to cell analysis have undergone growth. Combining these technologies requires careful formulation and analysis of the diagnostic model involving image cytometry. Here we present a model of the intelligent workstation for image cytometry and illustrate its advantages in cell-surface phenotyping. Combining cell morphology with cell-surface phenotyping has clear diagnostic utility that no other widely available methods can supply. Although the reported results are based on samples of peripheral blood, cell suspensions of disaggregated cells can also be analyzed.

The effects of pacing on complex decision-making inspection performance

The effects of time constraints in a complex decision-making inspection task were assessed utilizing a number of performance, physiological, and subjective measures. Twelve subjects were trained to classify a simulated product into one of four quality control categories, then tested on six pacing conditions varying in pacing speed and pacing rigidity. Subjects were able to maintain classification accuracy despite considerable variations in the time constraints of the task. The index of mental effort—heart rate variability—was the only measure which was found to be sensitive to the differences in pacing conditions. The subjective measures were not affected by pacing conditions but exhibited trends toward increasing postural discomfort, fatigue and boredom from the beginning to the end of each condition. A model of the inspector is tested which is based upon resource-limited models of human information processing.

Research note: The accuracy of group majorities for disjunctive and conjunctive decision tasks

For complex group decision tasks which can be described in terms of establishing the truth value of conjunctive ( and) or disjunctive ( or) composite propositions, the advantage for group judgmental accuracy of disaggregating the decision task into separate individual evaluations of the truth value of each component atomic proposition in the composite is investigated. For true propositions it is shown that disaggregation is preferable for conjunctive tasks, but not for disjunctive tasks; while the reverse is true for false propositions.

Individual differences in the use of simplification strategies in a complex decision-making task.

Decision time results were used to assess the strategies that 90 college undergraduates used in a complex decision-making task. Trend analyses revealed that the functions relating choice time to the number of choice alternatives in a set and the number of attributes comprising those alternatives contained linear (increasing) components. In addition, for a portion of the subjects, there was a quadratic effect of the number of attributes available to the decision maker on choice time, suggesting that these subjects adopted simplification strategies at high levels of task complexity. Reliable individual differences in these trend components were observed, consistent with individual differences in motivation and/or processing capacities. These individual differences were included in an information-processing model of decision behavior that captured the choice time data observed in this study. Subjects' ratings of apartments were used as a basis to assess the extent to which the use of simplification strategies resulted in preference reversals. Contrary to expectation, subjects whose choice times contained quadratic components demonstrated fewer preference reversals at high levels of information load.

Individual differences in the use of simplification strategies in a complex decision-making task.

Individual differences in the use of simplification strategies in a complex decision-making task.

The Development and Evaluation of a Methodology for Assessing Mental Models of Complex Decision Tasks

Models of decision making behavior in complex systems are hampered by an incomplete understanding of the way in which operators internally represent information about decision tasks. This paper describes the development and evaluation of a methodology for assessing mental models by humans to represent complex decision tasks. The methodology is based on the analysis of proximity measures using multidimensional scaling (MDS). In this research, six subjects were trained to classify a visually presented stimulus into one of four categories. The MDS methodology was used to track the evolution of the subject's internal model and identify the dimensional information used to classify the stimuli. The relation between the dimensional information revealed by the analysis and subject performance is discussed.

The Importance of Cognitive Style in Complex Decision Making

The notion of field dependence-field independence has been an important consideration in research assessing the impact of cognitive style on performance. The research reported in this paper assesses the importance of field dependence-field independence in a complex decision task requiring the subject to attend to multidimensional information. A simulated inspection task was chosen for this research because correct classification of faulty items was dependent upon the subject's ability to accurately weight the relative importance of each stimulus dimension. Twelve subjects were trained to classify simulated products into one of four quality control categories, and their scores on the embedded figures test was compared to their classification performance. The primary results of interest was the relative difference in classification accuracy between the two types of cognitive style. Field dependent subjects were hypothesized to be less accurate in classifying the simulated product since their cognitive style would prohibit them from ignoring irrelevant or less important stimulus dimensions. Subjects were also tested under conditions of increasingly severe time constraints in order to assess the interaction effects between cognitive style and mental workload demands. The results of this research will be discussed in terms of the importance of cognitive style and the implications of such individual strategies on decision making performance.

Senior Managers and Computers

Introduction The history of business computer systems development indicates a trend towards the increasing awareness of the potential for man‐machine synergy in some form. Until the early 1970s, the principal impact of computing had been upon the lower organisational levels and on the more structured tasks of the organisation, but from that time on there has been an increasing movement towards amalgamating computer power and management science in an attempt to aid the decision maker facing complex and unstructured decision tasks. More recently, such a blend has come to be termed a decision support system.

Are Funny Groups Good At Solving Problems?

A two-part study was conducted to determine if groups producing many different instances of laughing and joking were better at problem solving than groups displaying fewer of these behaviors. In the first phase of the study, nominally high, medium, and low wit individuals were selected to form six all-male and six all-female groups. These groups were then evaluated during a second phase of the study for the amount of joking and laughing produced as well as forgroup performance on a simple anagrams task and on a more complex decision task requiring an optimal ordering of alternatives. Initial results revealed that cross-phase predictability for humorous behaviors was low for male groups and somewhat better for female groups. For this reason, behaviorally high, medium, and low humor groups were then defined in terms of the amount of laughing and joking produced during phase 2. When total seconds of laughter was used, significant differences favoring high over medium and low groups were found for the number of anagrams produced but not for the more complex ordering task. When number of jokes was used to rank groups, no clear effect was obtained for either task. The different roles laughing and joking play in group problem solving and the methodological difficulties involved in the cross-situation selection of witty individuals are discussed.

Automated management of communications with remote systems: a decision analysis approach

Management of communications between a remote system and a supervisory human operator is viewed as a recurrent, complex decision task. The selection of information for transmission to the operator is a subjective, risky decision involving many factors—system state, operator capabilities, communications costs, and channel limitations, among others. An adaptive program has been developed which incorporates many of these factors into a decision model. The program is designed to infer the operator's decision policy by using a training algorithm based on pattern recognition techniques. Some exploratory studies of the approach are described.

The Decision Competence Paradox.

A paradox is found In the contrast of known human cognitive limitations and their apparent success in complex decision tasks. Several possible resolutions of the paradox are proposed, including misperception and misattribution of decisional success. A more general explanation, centered on the importance of action in decision making, is outlined.

Task complexity and contingent processing in decision making: An information search and protocol analysis

Two process tracing techniques, explicit information search and verbal protocols, were used to examine the information processing strategies subjects use in reaching a decision. Subjects indicated preferences among apartments. The number of alternatives available and number of dimensions of information available was varied across sets of apartments. When faced with a two alternative situation, the subjects employed search strategies consistent with a compensatory decision process. In contrast, when faced with a more complex (multialternative) decision task, the subjects employed decision strategies designed to eliminate some of the available alternatives as quickly as possible and on the basis of a limited amount of information search and evaluation. The results demonstrate that the information processing leading to choice will vary as a function of task complexity. An integration of research in decision behavior with the methodology and theory of more established areas of cognitive psychology, such as human problem solving, is advocated.

Viability, preference, and coalitions in the french election of 1951

Elections as a social choice institution have, of course, received intensive theoretical consideration in Public Choice. However, attention has largely been focused on situations that can be represented as n-person noncooperative games among candidates or parties, with particular emphasis on two-person constant-sum games. While mathematical facility has had much to do with these theoretical developments, the prevalence of the two-party system in the United States perhaps has also had an influence. Yet multiparty systems are in presence in much of the world. Multicandidate primaries already common in the U.S. have been further encouraged by recent proposals for proportional representation in Presidential primaries. The voter in a multicandidate or multiparty race is faced with a complex decision task. Viability as well as preference must be taken into account (McKelvey and Ordeshook, 1972; Kramer, 1968). Thus the voter may rationally vote for a candidate other than that candidate whose "position" is "closest" to the voter's.1 Moreover, in addition to considering the impact of his vote on eventual governing

Information load, group organization, and communication frequency

Four-man teams participated in a complex decision-making task. They were separated into decision-making and information acquisition dyads who could communicate via telephone only. All information was received by acquisition dyads who were free to call decision makers whenever they chose. The effect of suboptimal, optimal (one item of information per 3 min), and superoptimal information load presented to acquisition dyads on their frequency of communications to decision makers was investigated. Increasing information load produced increasing communication frequency. The slope of the curve relating information load to communication frequency was linear but less slanted than a 1:1 input/output relationship would predict. Communication frequency was significantly different from, but more similar to, optimal information load than to experimentally induced information load. It appears that information acquisition groups can be of some value in improving information flow to decision makers. However, “imaginary” information may be transmitted to the decision makers when the amount of information received is low and suboptimal.

Perceived control and military riskiness.

Contrary to findings of laboratory studies on betting, Higbee and Streufert (1969) found that in a complex decision-making task, Ss who felt that they had control over their environment tended to be less risky than Ss who felt that they did not have control over their environment. Their study involved economic risk, to be comparable with studies on betting. The present study investigated the generality of this finding, using a larger sample of participants and a different kind of risk. Ss participated in the Tactical and Negotiations Game, a complex decision-making task involving a simulated internation conflict. Ss who felt that they were in control of their environment (High Control Group) tended to make more risky military decisions than did Ss who felt that they did not have as much control over their environment (Low Control Group). However, Ss in the High Group were more active. That is, they made more military decisions (risky and nonrisky) than Ss in the Low Group. The High Group did not make more risky decisions relative to the total number of decisions made than did the Low Group.

Information load, proportion of relevance, and relevance perception

The effect of experimentally induced relevance on subjective relevance perception was investigated. Ss participated in a complex decision-making task. In Condition A, Ss received 1, 2, 3, or 4 relevant messages out of a total of 10 messages for any one of four (randomized) playing periods. Condition B exposed Ss to 1, 2, 3, or 4 relevant messages out of 20, and Condition C exposed Ss to 4, 8, 12, or 16 relevant messages out of 20. All other messages received by the Ss were irrelevant to their task. Messages had been prerated by a parallel population who did not participate in the complex task. It was found that subjective perceptions of relevance in complex tasks tended to be overestimates of actual relevance levels, particularly when the proportion of relevant information to total information was low. Further, Ss tended to underestimate actual relevance levels when information load of relevant items greatly exceeded the optimum established by complexity theory research.

Confidence in decision as an index of perceived accuracy of information processing

The effects of variations in accuracy of information processing on confidence in decision were explored within a complex decision task. Ss were exposed to a series of decision problems under different time-pressure conditions and were required to make a choice and a confidence rating in the case of each problem. Problems varied in terms of response uncertainty and relative amount of information. The confidence measure was significantly affected by the response uncertainty and amount of information variables, but did not show a systematic relation to variations in accuracy of processing. The confidence measure did prove to be a stable index of response uncertainty even in those cases where the subjective probability distribution departed from the objective distribution.

Effects of failure in a complex decision-making task on perceptions of cost, profit and certainty

Dyad decision-making teams spent seven consecutive half-hour periods playing a complex internation game containing tactical, economic, negotiation and intelligence components. Although the subjects assumed that they were affecting their environment, the game was pre-programmed. Teams received seven informative messages per one-half hour period. Increasing failure was induced by increasing the proportion of failure to neutral messages over periods. After each one-half hour period, subjects indicated their present and anticipated cost, profit and certainty estimates on rating scales.Increasing failure produced generally rising cost level estimates. A discrepancy between actually experienced (present) and anticipated cost levels under low failure levels produced an “optimistic” outlook by subjects that expressed itself in initially steady profit estimates and initially rising certainty estimates. Under higher failure levels, profit and certainty estimates were inversely related to (increasing) cost estimates. It is suggested that under low failure levels, perceptions of psycho-economic conditions in complex environments may be multiply determined. However, as failure levels increase (and optimism is absent), perceptions of psycho-economic conditions may be determined by the most salient environmental characteristic.

Some Determinants of Certitude Judgments in a Complex Decision-Making Task

This research investigated the relationship between certitude and decision adequacy using a complex problem-solving task. 120 male college Ss, serving with pay, solved 12 problems which varied in amount of information and method of coding. Each S also estimated the adequacy of his solution as well as the affective tone of the situation after the solution of each problem. Data were also available from a set of cognitive-perceptual-style measures. Results indicated that: (1) the correlation between decision adequacy and certitude is low and probably of negligible significance; (2) certitude is closely related to affective aspects of the stimulus; and, (3) level of certitude is related to the level of cognitive and perceptual scanning employed by S. It is suggested that (1) the correlation between certitude and decision adequacy may also be a function of the extensiveness of the response repertoire permitted S in the experimental situation, and (2) more intensive examination of individual differences with respect to accuracy of certitude judgments may be necessary.

Experience and prior probability in a complex decision task.

Experience and prior probability in a complex decision task.