Simple Judgment Research Articles

Shaping what we see: pinning down the influence of value on perceptual judgements

Shaping what we see: pinning down the influence of value on perceptual judgements

Modeling the Economic Effect of Cognitive Biases on Oil and Gas Decisions

This article, written by Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 110765, "Modeling the Economic Impact of Cognitive Biases on Oil and Gas Decisions," by M.B. Welsh, SPE, and S.H. Begg, SPE, University of Adelaide, and R.B. Bratvold, SPE, University of Stavanger, prepared for the 2007 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Anaheim, California, 11-14 November. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Cognitive biases are known to affect decisions made under conditions of uncertainty. Previous demonstrations of these biases have focused on their effect on a single-parameter, typically technical, judgment rather than examining the potential effect on economics when applied to all of the judgments involved in a complex oil and gas (O&G) decision such as reservoir characterization. Three individual biases—overconfidence, trust heuristic, and availability heuristic—were modeled to measure their effect on economic outcome as represented by net present value (NPV). Introduction Cognitive biases are unconscious errors in judgments and decisions (particularly those made under conditions of uncertainty) that arise from the inherent structure and functioning of the brain's cognitive architecture. These errors affect most subjective judgments of probability and value and can be multiplicative—the same biases affecting multiple parameters, thus increasing the effect with the complexity of calculations made with those parameters. The effects that such biases can have on the complex decisions in the O&G industry, however, have not been assessed. Part of the reason is the perceived difference in scale between simple judgments, on which biases operate, and large exploration and development decisions. This difference is, however, largely illusory because the largest industry decisions, at their base, depend on the judgments of individuals and are, thus, vulnerable to any biases that affect those individuals. Many industry decisions are made by teams, but studies suggest that, in many cases, the "team" decision actually is based largely on the judgment of the most trusted member of that team. Decisions that seem particularly vulnerable to biases are choices of distributions for input parameters that go into simple volumetrics calculations. Such parameters include average porosity, net-/gross-thickness ratio, and formation volume factor. Given the high degree of subjectivity in assessing these distributions and the difficulty of calibrating the assessments, they are extremely susceptible to cognitive bias. The problem for large O&G decisions is that they rely on many such subjective estimates, all of which are likely to be affected by bias. Modeling Biases. Three biases were chosen for modeling: overconfidence, trust heuristic, and availability heuristic. The models used for overconfidence and availability heuristic differ slightly but were run using an offshore-development decision regarding a large, but economically marginal, field. To limit the scope of the problem, bias and uncertainty were restricted to parameters affecting volumetrics. The development characteristics were determined by the interplay of reserves according to realistic rules (including determining the number of wells appropriate to a discovery of a certain size) and by capacity limits, development schedule, and pressure depletion.

Polarization imaging for material classification

A simple and stable method is proposed for distinguishing dielectric and metal material surfaces from the polarization images captured by a vision system consisting of a linear polarizer and a digital camera. The polarization state is determined by the transmitted light intensity through the polarizer as a function of polarizing orientation. The degree of polarization (DOP) is estimated from the image intensities through the polarizer. The DOP map is quite effective for material classification around specular highlight on an object surface. We prove that the DOP map is convex for a dielectric surface and concave for a metal surface. The problem of material classification is then reduced to a simple judgment of the convexity of the DOP map obtained around the highlight peak. The proposed method is not a pixelwise local method based on thresholding the Fresnel ratio computed at each pixel but an area-based method based on the DOP map in a highlight area. The feasibility of the method is confirmed in experiments under a variety of conditions.

Core and attribute reduction algorithms based on database system for decision table

A simple judgement method of algebraic core for decision table was presented.It simplified the calculation by comparing the cardinality of two positive regions instead of the two regions.A new algorithm based on database system was proposed to explore attribute core.Since conditional attribute set has been an algebraic consistent set,it can guarantee to obtain a reduction by top-bottom strategy to eliminate reducible attributes.Theoretical analysis and experimental results show that they are efficient in large data sets.

A quantitative analysis of cognitive strategy usage in the marking of two GCSE examinations

Diverse strategies for marking GCSE examinations have been identified, ranging from simple automatic judgements to complex cognitive operations requiring considerable expertise. However, little is known about patterns of strategy usage or how such information could be utilised by examiners. We conducted a quantitative analysis of previous verbal protocol data collected from twelve experienced examiners using a concurrent ‘think aloud’ method. Two contrasting examination papers had been marked: mathematics and business studies. Five senior examiners were interviewed about the findings. The analysis revealed differences in strategy usage among individual examiners, but most strikingly, between subjects and among question parts. For most questions, examiners used strategy combinations rather than single strategies. Business studies question parts could be categorised according to whether they entailed simple or complex strategies. However, most mathematics question parts entailed a mixture of diverse strategies. The examiners identified potential implications of the findings for examiner training and modernising marking systems.

Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites: Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World (review)

Horse-and-Buggy Mennonites: Hoofbeats of Humility in a Postmodern World. By Donald B. Kraybill and James P. Hurd. (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. 2006. Pp. xii, 362. $40.00 clothbound; $19.95 paperback.) The subtitle, hoofbeats of humility in a postmodern encapsulates the book's contents. This study is about the Groffdale Mennonite Conference, 33% of whose population of about 18,000, live in Lancaster county in Pennsylvania. This group, often referred to as Wengers, is now located in nine states. Canadian Old Orders are not included. Numerous interviews, some with tape recorders, and participant observation, are the basis of data gathering, with astute analysis. Numerous direct quotations from interviews are used; in a few cases there are gentle critiques of their own practices. The peculiar life style of these horse-and-buggy Mennonites is vividly portrayed: clothing, business and farming methods, family church rule, entertainment, education, youth and values, to name a few. The authors push us to go beyond visual appearance, beyond any quick and simple judgement. The writers show the Old Order rationale of their culture, and subtly appeal to postmoderns to examine where modernity, technology, and individualism have possibly impaired us. The wheel, its hub, spokes, and rim show us much of Old Order life (Chapter 3). Wheels relate to: transportation buggies, horse-drawn wagons, tractors, fork lifts, lawn mowers, and most importantly, tractors and cars. Which vehicle(s) might use a rim of steel, solid rubber or be air inflated? Old Orders recognize that one is viewing something much larger than mere steel and rubber. The question addresses comfort, efficiency, more speedy transportation, a potential loss of identity, individualism, and a compromise with the world, of which the Old Orders are to be separate. Old Orders do not subject themselves to the flow and breaks of our calendar. The church calendar, such as Christmas, Easter, and Ascension are more valid than state and labor holidays. The four seasons of the year, night and day, morning and evening are central. Work is God-given and pleasurable, enriching life. Parents delight in being with their children throughout the day. Many fathers choose to work at home in close proximity to their family, rather than an eight-hour shift away from home, which would give them more money. Similarly, a one-room school within two miles from home is preferred to a school bus pickup to a distant town where questionable values and behavior are tolerated. Parents make every effort to initiate their young adult offspring in business, preferably a farm, often at tremendous cost. Community and church take precedent over the accumulation of money and conspicuous consumption. These people are a persevering group. We see significant divisiveness within this community in 1812, 1893, and 1927, as well as potential splits between and after these historic points. We recognize the constant, very careful balance within and between clergy and lay folk, all to hold the principles of tradition, the Ordnung (rules of the church), and life in their contemporary world. …

Neural correlates of individual differences in moral judgment competence

Normative judgment – the evaluation of actions with respect to social norms and values – entails a number of processes represented by a distributed network of brain regions. People differ with respect to their competence to make moral judgments. In this study we investigated how individual differences in this domain modulate neural correlates of simple normative judgments. Sentences including violations of social norms and grammatical rules were presented visually in a mixed blocked/ event-related design. Social norm violations were designed not to create emotional arousal. 23 participants decided whether sentences were normatively or grammatically correct while their brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging. To assess emotional arousal skin conductance was recorded. Individual differences in moral judgment competence were assessed using the Moral Judgment Test (C-score; Lind, 2001). Normative judgments compared to grammatical judgments resulted in activation of temporal poles, left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, left orbitofrontal cortex, and left posterior Sulcus temporalis superior (mixed effects, p<0.001, uncorr.). There was no correlation between C-scores and response times during either task, however changes in brain activity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, BA 45/46) during normative as compared to grammatical judgments covaried with C-scores. A region of interest analysis showed that C-scores correlated negatively with blood oxygen level-dependent responses in right DLPFC during normative (rNORM=-0.47, p<0.05) but not during grammatical judgments (rgram=-0.05, p=0.41). In this study we contrasted normative judgments devoid of emotional arousal with grammatical judgments. Our data are in line with previous studies which found a similar functional neural network contributing to a number of tasks ranging from simple moral decisions to complex dilemmatic moral judgments. Moreover, we provide first evidence that individual differences in moral judgment competence modulate neural correlates of normative judgments. When making normative judgments, participants with higher competence recruited the right DLPFC less than those with less ability in this domain. This might indicate lower processing demands of participants with higher moral judgment competence.

A within-modality test of semantic knowledge: The Size/Weight Attribute Test.

Individuals with semantic dementia (SD; n=12) or Alzheimer's disease (AD; n=20) and healthy volunteers (n=40) were tested on tasks probing attribute rather than associative knowledge of animals and objects in the visual and verbal domains. The tasks were within modality, in that they probed knowledge in a single presentation modality (pictures or written words) and did not require cross-modal matching. Participants were required to make the same simple judgment about triads of animal stimuli ("Which is the largest and smallest?") and object stimuli ("Which is the heaviest and lightest?"). Control participants scored at ceiling on this simple task. Overall, the SD patients were significantly more impaired on this task than were the AD patients, who in turn were significantly more impaired than the controls. There was a strong trend for SD but not AD patients to show worse performance with verbal than visual material. However, no significant effects of category were found in either patient group. The Size/Weight Attribute Test has the potential to assess modality-specific deficits of semantic knowledge.

Social Influence in a Distributed Simulation

Massively multiplayer environments provide a distributed simulation in which to assess the effects of social influence on individual behaviors. This study used this platform to determine the presence of conformity within a virtual environment, essentially replicating the classic social psychology methodology employed by Asch (see Asch 1952a, 1956) on conformity of responses to perceptual judgment tasks. Experimental confederates acting as users in a distributed simulation provided unanimously incorrect responses to a simple line judgment task. Actual experimental participants varyingly demonstrated conforming behavior in their responses, with some deviations from Asch's findings. Implications for training, particularly in military settings, are discussed as are necessary future research endeavors.

Underspecification and Anaphora: Theoretical Issuesand Preliminary Evidence

Much experimental work in psycholinguistics suggests that fully specified syntactic and semantic interpretations are obtained incrementally. The finding that interpretation takes place incrementally is very robust and underlies our own view of sentence processing as well; however, most of this work tends to test very simple interpretive judgments using materials that have clean-cut interpretations, which makes the earlier-expressed view more questionable when applied to semantic interpretation. This article discusses a class of anaphoric expressions that do not appear to have a clear antecedent, referring to data from both corpus analysis and psycholinguistic experiments. We argue that these cases of anaphora are similar to cases of lexical polysemy and propose an explicit semantic representation for such cases.

Neural correlates of individual differences in moral judgment competence

Normative judgment – the evaluation of actions with respect to social norms and values – entails a number of processes represented by a distributed network of brain regions. People differ with respect to their competence to make moral judgments. In this study we investigated how individual differences in this domain modulate neural correlates of simple normative judgments. Sentences including violations of social norms and grammatical rules were presented visually in a mixed blocked/ event-related design. Social norm violations were designed not to create emotional arousal. 23 participants decided whether sentences were normatively or grammatically correct while their brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging. To assess emotional arousal skin conductance was recorded. Individual differences in moral judgment competence were assessed using the Moral Judgment Test (C-score; Lind, 2001). Normative judgments compared to grammatical judgments resulted in activation of temporal poles, left ventromedial prefrontal cortex, left orbitofrontal cortex, and left posterior Sulcus temporalis superior (mixed effects, p<0.001, uncorr.). There was no correlation between C-scores and response times during either task, however changes in brain activity in right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, BA 45/46) during normative as compared to grammatical judgments covaried with C-scores. A region of interest analysis showed that C-scores correlated negatively with blood oxygen level-dependent responses in right DLPFC during normative (rNORM=-0.47, p<0.05) but not during grammatical judgments (rgram=-0.05, p=0.41). In this study we contrasted normative judgments devoid of emotional arousal with grammatical judgments. Our data are in line with previous studies which found a similar functional neural network contributing to a number of tasks ranging from simple moral decisions to complex dilemmatic moral judgments. Moreover, we provide first evidence that individual differences in moral judgment competence modulate neural correlates of normative judgments. When making normative judgments, participants with higher competence recruited the right DLPFC less than those with less ability in this domain. This might indicate lower processing demands of participants with higher moral judgment competence.

2P1-D01 遠隔操縦システムにおける環境認識能力の熟達評価 : 車載カメラ映像による環境分類と操作入力に基づく熟達推定

In this paper, experimental analysis to evaluate human skill on machine manipulation is introduced for realization of a Human Adaptive Mechatronics(HAM). HAM is a novel concept of an intelligent mechanical systems that adapt themselves to the user's skill and assist to improve the user's skill. Using a tele-operated wheel mobile robot and a maze task, we acquired data of which human became skilled, and analyzed them in order to know what index can evaluate human skill level. From three kinds of analyses, that are eye-gaze behavior analysis, a feasible motion selection check based on observed camera image and a pattern recognition by Markov model, it was confirmed that synchronization of robot's operation and eye-fixation and cognitive manipulation not based on simple judgement from camera image have relation with performance level of the task.

Can ‘Football-Team Color-Code’ Compensate for Anomia? The case study of FN, a patient with color anomia

A case study is reported on large ischemic infracts involving cortical and subcortical areas of the parietal lobes bilaterally, especially left temporo-parietal and right parietal. On examination, the diagnosis of vascular dementia with color anomia, optic aphasia for colors, was established. The patient (FN) showed great difficulty in understanding a scene as a whole and in describing complex scenes. FN’s oral comprehension skills at word and sentence level were satisfactory and he exhibited communicative effectiveness during conversation. He could read letter by letter, but could not make simple judgments of shapes. FN exhibited a marked inability to name colors presented to him visually and to indicate or point to the color requested from the examiner. The most interesting of all the patient’s characteristics was the strategy – a football-team color-code – he had developed for compensating for his inability to name colors.

'Vacation' at Sea: Judicial Remedies and Equitable Discretion in Administrative Law

Scholars have rarely examined the remedial issues that federal courts may face when they find that an administrative agency has acted unlawfully. This article presents a broad survey of that topic in the course of exploring a narrower doctrinal issue: the validity of without That term denotes a practice whereby a court remands an agency action for further work but allows the action to remain in place during the remand proceedings. In recent years many appellate panels have resorted to this practice in order to minimize disruption of an ongoing administrative program or to protect private reliance interests. Some argue that this very untraditional form of relief is prohibited by section 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act, which provides that a reviewing court shall . . . set aside an agency action that violates one of the review standards codified therein. This article contends, however, that section 706 should not be read literally, but rather in light of a longstanding canon of statutory construction that disfavors interpretations that would displace the equitable remedial discretion of the federal courts. The article traces the history of that discretion in the administrative law context and examines its numerous manifestations in modern case law. The tradition of remedial discretion is not without limits, however. Several recent cases, in which the Supreme Court has evinced a preference for bright-line rules over equitable balancing, suggest that at least some Justices would have doubts about remand without vacation. Indeed, a peek at some of the Court's internal working papers confirms the existence of such doubts. Moreover, this remedial device is subject to practical objections - most notably, that it might unduly relax pressure on agencies to do their work carefully the first time around, and discourage private citizens from initiating court actions to challenge agency orders. Nevertheless, this article defends remand without vacation as a legitimate exercise of discretion. The practice entails relatively simple judgments, not drastically different from determinations that courts have often made in the past. Moreover, the practical worries about the device have not been borne out by experience to date. Accordingly, the article advocates continued but cautious use of remand without vacation. Relying in part on guidelines endorsed by the American Bar Association, the article concludes by suggesting standards to guide the courts' exercise of discretion in this area.

Psychological Processes in Perceiving Reality

Little attention has been paid to the mental processes and the story elements that influence perceived reality judgments of media stories. People often lack the motivation or ability to be thoughtful about perceived reality judgments. This is particularly true when the stimulus controls the pace of the story (e.g., television). It is possible that people use the typical and atypical elements of a story as a heuristic for making simple judgments about perceived reality of media narratives. In 2 studies, the careful manipulation of atypical and typical information in a soap opera and a news story predicted about half the variance in perceived reality. As the typicality of the stories increased, so did the participants' ratings of the perceived reality of the stories. In a 3rd study, while viewing entertainment television shows, participants used dials to continuously rate the selected programs for perceived reality, typicality, interest, and liking. Results indicate that viewers can make moment-to-moment reality judgments, and these judgments are strongly related to typicality. Interest-liking was related to typicality and perceived reality for drama. For comedy, however, situations with low reality produced greater interest and liking. Typicality appears to be a key psychological characteristic of media stories.

Who We Are, A History of Popular Nationalism by Robert H. Wiebe (review)

674 Рецензии/Reviews fell along with other great movements , democracy and socialism. A history of nationalism does not make sense without them...” (p. xv). Thus wherever he discusses nationalism , it is usually in the company of these two other elements. He discusses all three simultaneously in the larger context of the growth of state power. It is this last entity that has so frequently co-opted the benign and admirable element of popular nationalism and perverted it for its own ends. In Wiebe’s view, it is the state that is the real villain. In his preface, Wiebe states that he wants us to see nationalism as something that is “so thoroughly human that no simple judgment does it justice” (xvii). In other words, nationalism is so complex that, by itself, it cannot be blamed for the ills of the past century. He spends a great deal of effort in presenting evidence attesting to its variability and complexity while attempting to show that other elements are to blame. Chapter 1, “Thinking About Nationalism ”, opens with the question Wiebe uses as the background to his discussion: “How did educatedWesterners come to make enemies of an inspiration that has changed the lives of billions?” (p.1). He also gives his own optimistic and benign definition of nationalism: “Nationalism is the desire among people who believe they share a common ancestry and a common destiny to live under their people is told as the one of an ancient civilization that survived many troubles yet was almost destroyed during the Holocaust. What happened after the horrific events of the Holocaust are, therefore, shown as a happy ending. This catalogue, however , addresses present concerns by raising the specter of anti-Semitism in Lithuania with the great truth and accuracy. Robert STACY Robert H. Wiebe, Who We Are, A History of Popular Nationalism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). 268 pp. Bibliography, Index. ISBN: 0-691-09023-8. Who We Are is the late Robert Wiebe’s history and assessment of popular nationalism, its development , and influence in the 19th and 20th centuries. Wiebe’s book is very general in its coverage and highly selective in the elements chosen to present this story.The author’s stated purpose is to trace “nationalism’s rise and decline as a popular movement , first in Europe, then elsewhere in the world. Nationalism rose and 675 Ab Imperio, 4/2003 just as well include the strength and elasticity of family-kin relations or the perceived meaning of the homeland among the people in the group. In discussing migration’s importance and effects, he tells how some groups emigrated toAmerica and formed enclaves . Some had relatively weak ties back to their homeland (for example, the Germans); others formed groups that substantially sustained the nationalist movements in their point of origin (for example, the Irish). Chapter 3, “Changing Contexts,” explains how nationalism developed and evolved within two major contexts, particularly during the 40 years preceding the First World War. The first context, already mentioned, was the combination of democracy and socialism and their uneasy relationship with state control. The second context was nationalism developing in company and competition with the increasing awareness and importance of language, race, and religion. Again, he illustrates his broad narrative with specific examples . He concludes with the observation that by 1914 nationalism had been largely co-opted by the states. This appropriation of popular movements was accomplished by several means. Foremost among these were anti-populist trends, success in eliminating socialism and democracy, increased state-sponsored militarism, and the selective inclusion of linguistic , racial, and religious movements. own government on land sacred to their history” (p. 5). Wiebe sees nationalism as a 19th century solution to the problem of identity that emerged when previously existing institutions that had provided identity began to collapse. He makes an important distinction in stating that he is talking about an idea of national identity based on broad popular appeal (thus, Popular Nationalism). Wiebe warns us to not assume that popular nationalism is necessarily spontaneous or democratic. He also, for the first of many times, cautions us not to mistake state patriotism for a genuinely popular nationalism. Chapter 2, “European Origins”, is a...

Assessment loading criteria for bridge decks, piers and parapets

The volume of road traffic in Great Britain has grown rapidly since the 1950s. This has been accompanied by considerable increases in gross vehicle weights. In response to these developments, the traffic loading requirements for bridge design were significantly upgraded in the 1980s. Notwithstanding these enhancements, the network still contains a large number of existing decks, parapets and piers designed to the earlier requirements, a proportion of which may now be at some risk. The authorities are aware that these elements need to be identified and upgraded as soon as possible. Wholesale upgrading of all structures or structural elements to their full design requirements, and maintaining them at that level, is not a practical proposition. Nor is this justifiable as the conditions on some routes represent negligible risk to even the ‘sub-design standard’ structures. Assessment specific criteria for bridge decks which are less onerous than the design requirements have therefore been used formally from the 1960s in order to identify the existing structures in need of upgrading. This paper attempts to derive similar assessment criteria for bridge piers and parapets in respect of accidental vehicle impact. The first part of the paper examines four possible methods that can be used for the purpose deterministic, risk based cost-benefit, target reliability and whole life cost optimisation methods. These methods are somewhat related to each other, in the sense that they all consider the probability of failure in some way. It is concluded that the deterministic criteria, which can be justified as being based on simple engineering judgement, produce in reality similar results to the other approaches. In the second part of the paper, the assessment criteria for existing piers and parapets are therefore derived using a deterministic approach based on the maximum speeds of vehicles on specific types of road.

Influence of a general small inclination on the measurement in Talbot interferometry

The effects of a general small inclination between the two grating planes on the moire fringes in Talbot interferometry under illumination with a plane wave are studied. The inclination is generated by rotating the beamsplitter grating through two small angles around the two perpendicular axes in the grating plane, making an arbitrary angle with the line direction of the grating. Some simple judgement and adjustment methods for the inclination are presented. The results obtained by theoretical analysis have been verified by experiments.

God Bless Buffalo Bill

William E (Buffalo Bill) Cody gave Americans a real version of the West that depicted Indians as raw savages, cowboys as chivalrous knights, and both as products of nature. Courageous pioneers versus savage Indians seemed as natural an opposition as sun and moon. The Wild West (the term was omitted from the title to indicate that this was no fantasy), announced Cody's publicists, not the result of rehearsal, it is not acting, it is nature itself (Reddin, p. 61). Perhaps that is indictment enough against Cody and his Wild West show. Both Cody and his show sponsored, celebrated, and commemorated a racialized form of imperialism. Yet, as Joy Kasson (professor of American studies and English at the University of North Carolina) and Paul Reddin (professor of history at Mesa State College Colorado) show two new books on wild west shows, Buffalo Bill leaves us a quandary. It is impossible to celebrate Buffalo Bill wholeheartedly; yet it is impossible to condemn him outright. He did, after all, give Americans and Europeans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries first-rate modern spectacles. Buffalo Bill's Wild West shows involved constant action, horsemanship, sharp shooting, and glitter enough for the Grand Ole Opry, putting the Wild West show a league with P.T. Barnum's circuses. More important, who would condemn a man who apologizes to a friend for being slow to respond to a letter because he had been in a hell of a toot (i.e., drunk), and who shouts to his wife the middle of a third-rate stage melodrama, Hello Mama! Oh, but I'm a bad actor (Reddin, p. 57)? Buffalo Bill was an ingenuous soul, at least the early stages of his entertainment career, and he defies simple judgment. The resurrection of Buffalo Bill, if he needs resurrecting, is far from complete, yet the more human he seems, the more likable he becomes. L.G.

The Political Environment and Citizen Competence

care reform, we find that performance depends heavily on environmental conditions. A combination of general information with increased motivation to act responsibly improves aggregate performance. An extremely favorable environment not only enhances performance, but it even eliminates the effects of individual differences in education and political sophistication. The analysis points toward reforming structures that shape the political environment as the most plausible route to improved democratic governance. rom the late 1950s to the mid-1980s, the study of citizen decision making focused almost exclusively on the individual citizen's cognitive capabilities and political knowledge. With few exceptions, this research reached the familiar verdict that most citizens know little about politics, do not care to know much about it, and often make ill-considered and superficial judgments (Converse 1964;Sniderman 1993). An important corollary was that the well educated and politically sophisticated-the cognitively engaged, to use Zaller's (1992) term-outperform other citizens on judgment tasks (see Luskin 1987 for an excellent review). More recently, some scholars have argued that the political environment serves as an informational crutch that assists citizens when they are making political judgments (Lupia 2000). The optimistic outlook of the political-heuristics literature, in particular, rests on the view that the environment gives people simple judgment tasks to perform and generally provides reliable cues to help citizens perform them (Carmines and Kuklinski 1990; Lupia 1994; Lupia and McCubbins 1998; Mondak 1993; Popkin 1991; Sniderman 2000; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991; Wittman 1995). From this perspective, the cognitively highly engaged still outperform the less engaged, but even the latter usually make reasonable choices. Critics contend that the environment of contemporary American politics provides considerably less assistance than champions of heuristics have portrayed (see Bartels 1996; Kuklinski and Quirk 2000; and Luskin 2000 for critiques). Nevertheless, the idea that political environments might enhance citizen performance is an important advance in public opinion research.