Fuzzy-trace theory
Encyclopedia
Fuzzy-Trace Theory is a theory that is used in several different areas of psychology, such as cognitive, developmental and social psychology. FTT is a theory of memory and cognition with broad ramifications for the study of judgment and decision-making and two decades of empirical support. Although often mentioned in the scientific literature as a dual-process account, FTT differs in some crucial and distinctive points. For example, FTT differs from other dual-process approaches in emphasizing the existence of degrees of rationality as well as the role of emotion in decisions that involve risk. Most importantly, FTT differs from standard dual-process accounts in its view of intuition as developing into adulthood and representing an advanced form of mature reasoning. Moreover, the integration between memory and reasoning makes FTT capable of providing a unique perspective to the field. FTT’s counterintuitive and paradoxical findings (e.g. in memory testing, false memory persistence, non-numerical framing effects and reductions in risk-taking preference from childhood to adulthood) address new challenges for standard dual-process approaches to rationality.
In 1990, two articles were published that introduced FTT as a comprehensive theory: Brainerd and Reyna (1990) reviewed prior work on working memory capacity and related it to reasoning, judgment, and decision-making (e.g., digit span, dual-task interference, as well as other measures of capacity such as measures of memory for information in problems, e.g., in framing problems). Reyna and Brainerd (1990) reviewed research on transitive inference, also relating effects to working memory capacity FTT accounts for this independence through the assumption that people form two kinds of mental re-presentations, verbatim and gist representations, but rely primarily on gist. A current overview is found in Reyna and Brainerd (1995). See also, Reyna, Lloyd and Brainerd (2003).
Gist representations are fuzzy (less precise than verbatim representations) traces of experience in memory, hence the name fuzzy-trace theory. Moreover, gist refers to the meaning an individual extracts from information (i.e., the semantic representations), which reflects the individual’s knowledge, understanding, culture, and developmental level. Verbatim representations, instead, are detailed and quantitative.
People are generally capable of both forms of thinking, but when they make judgments the gist process prevails. This means, for example, that even if people are capable of understanding ratio concepts like probabilities and prevalence rates (which are the standard for the presentation of health- and risk-related data), their choice will be governed by the bottom-line meaning (“That’s a high risk”; or “I am going to get cancer like my sister did”), not the number (Reyna, 2008).
A relevant concept in FTT is called "task calibration"; this concept explains how features of the task determine which memory representation is used (but a gist default is assumed). For example, Reyna and Kiernan (1994, 1995) presented data for adults (as well as children) showing that the relations between memory and reasoning could be actively manipulated to produce negative dependency, positive dependency, or independence by varying reliance on verbatim versus gist memory representations.
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1990). Gist is the grist: fuzzy-trace theory and the new intuitionism. Developmental Review, 10, 3-47.
Reyna, V.F. (2008). A Theory of Medical Decision Making and Health: Fuzzy Trace Theory. Medical Decision Making, 28(6), 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1990). Fuzzy processing in transitivity development. Annals of Operations Research, 23, 37-63.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis. Learning and Individual Differences, 7, 1–75.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1994). The development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instruction, and retention interval. Developmental Psychology, 30, 178-191.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1995). Children’s memory and metaphorical interpretation. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10, 309-331.
FTT’s core assumptions concern the relations between memory (especially working memory) and judgment-and-decision-making. The following is a short précis of relevant work, citing a few papers for illustrative purposes. In 1990, two articles were published that introduced fuzzy trace theory as a comprehensive theory: Brainerd and Reyna (1990) reviewed prior work on working memory capacity and related it to reasoning, judgment, and decision making (e.g., digit span, dual-task interference, as well as other measures of capacity such as measures of memory for information in problems, e.g., in framing problems). Reyna and Brainerd (1990) reviewed research on transitive inference, also relating effects to working memory capacity (e.g., increasing memory load had no effect on transitive reasoning when the paradigm allowed reasoning to be based on gist representations rather than verbatim representations). Reyna (1995) is a chapter that summarizes research on working memory capacity and its relation to judgment-and-decision-making. Reyna and Brainerd (1995) is probably the most comprehensive overview of the theory with respect to the early work on working memory capacity; they summarize prior research on working memory capacity and its relation to performance in many paradigms.
Several paradoxical results were key in shaping the theory: (1) independence between measures of working memory capacity and performance on judgment-and-decision making tasks, even when memory for the information in the tasks (within subjects) was assessed (measurement sensitivity was dealt with at length, e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 1992, and mathematical models were developed); (2) interference of memory with judgment-and-decision-making such that better memory produced worse reasoning (and conversely increasing memory load produced better reasoning) under theoretically specified conditions. As a result of many findings that violated standard predictions about working memory capacity, FTT introduced the idea that people encode two kinds of memories (verbatim and gist) but mainly rely on gist in judgment-and-decision-making tasks (and on verbatim memory in standard working memory tasks); "task calibration" explained how features of the task determined which memory representation is used (but a gist default is assumed). Age trends in false memory are another area in which FTT has generated counterintuitive predictions about memory development (Brainerd, Reyna, & Ceci, 2008; Reyna & Brainerd, 1995).
FTT relies primarily upon five principles to explain memory development - where, for the most part, memory development boils down to ontogenetic variations in true- and false-memory responses to recognition and recall tasks (Brainerd & Reyna, 2004). Those principles are: (a) parallel storage of verbatim and gist traces, (b) dissociated retrieval of verbatim and gist traces, (c) differential survival rates for verbatim and gist traces, (d) retrieval phenomenology, and (e) developmental variability in verbatim and gist memory.
Brainerd, Reyna and Howe (2009) have recently proposed a unified theory of recall which combines the traditional dual processes of recollection and familiarity with a reconstruction process. The theory is then embedded in a hidden Markov model that measures all 3 processes with low-burden tasks that are appropriate for even young children. This model can be applied to many different areas such as memory development, aging, neurocognitive impairment, and other clinical populations.
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1990). Gist is the grist: Fuzzy-trace theory and the new intuitionism. Developmental Review, 10, 3-47.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1992). Explaining memory-free reasoning. Psychological Science, 3, 332-339.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1992). The memory independence effect: What do the data show? What do the theories claim? Developmental Review, 12, 164-186.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1993). Memory independence and memory interference in cognitive development. Psychological Review, 100, 42– 67.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2004). Fuzzy-trace theory and memory development. Developmental Review, 24, 396-439.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2005). The science of false memory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brainerd, C. J., Reyna, V. F., & Ceci, S. J. (2008). Developmental reversals in false memory: A review of data and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 343–382.
Brainerd, C. J., Reyna, V. F., & Howe, M. L. (2009). Trichotomous processes in early memory development, aging, and cognitive impairment: a unified theory. Psychological Review, 116, 783-832.
Reyna, V. F. (1995). Interference effects in memory and reasoning: A fuzzy-trace theory analysis. In F. N. Dempster & C. J. Brainerd (Eds.), Interference and inhibition in cognition (pp. 29–59). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Reyna, V.F. (2008). A Theory of Medical Decision Making and Health: Fuzzy Trace Theory. Medical Decision Making, 28(6), 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1990). Fuzzy processing in transitivity development. Annals of Operations Research, 23, 37-63.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis. Learning and Individual Differences, 7, 1–75.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1994). The development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instruction, and retention interval. Developmental Psychology, 30, 178-191.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1995). Children's memory and metaphorical interpretation. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10, 309-331.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision-making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Information from childhood to old age shows that FTT verbatim and gist distinctions are essential and characterize memory development across the life span. Aged adults gradually lose verbatim memory. Compared to young adults, aged adults show not only a reduction in true memories but also an increase in false memories. Dennis et al. (2008) investigated the neural bases of these age effects using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a false memory task that resembles the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Younger and older participants were scanned during a word recognition task that included studied words and new words that were strongly associated with studied words (critical lures). The results suggest that older adults' deficits in true memories reflect a decline in recollection (verbatim) processes mediated by the hippocampus, whereas their increased tendency to have false memories reflects their reliance on semantic gist mediated by the lateral temporal cortex (Dennis et al., 2008).
In a study by Aizpurua and Koutstaal (2010) older and younger adults were tested on a picture recognition task that required them to make episodic memory decisions at an item-specific (verbatim) versus category-based (gist-based) level on randomly intermixed trials. Their findings suggest that aging attenuates the capacity to adaptively and flexibly use episodic memory at different levels of specificity. Reyna and Mills (2007) summarize neurocognitive development from childhood to adult age, showing that verbatim-gist distinctions are essential in characterizing memory across the lifespan.
KEY REFERENCES
Aizpurua, A., & Koutstaal, W. (2010). Aging and flexible remembering: contributions of conceptual span, fluid intelligence, and frontal functioning. Psychology & Aging, 25, 193-207.
Ally, B., McKeever, J., Waring, J., & Budson, A. (2009). Preserved frontal memorial processing for pictures in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Neuropsychologia, 47, 2044-2055.
Dennis, N., Hongkeun, K., & Cabeza, R. (2008). Age-related differences in brain activity during true and false memory retrieval. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 1390-1402.
Garoff, R., Slotnick, S., & Schacter, D. (2005). The neural origins of specific and general memory: the role of the fusiform cortex. Neuropsychologia, 43, 847-859.
Gutchess, A., Kensinger, E., & Schacter, D. (2010). Functional neuroimaging of self-referential encoding with age. Neuropsychologia, 48, 211-219.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: an interim synthesis. Learning & Individual Differences, 7, 1-75.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Interference processes in fuzzy-trace theory: Aging, Alzheimer's disease, and development. In C. MacLeod & D. Gorfein (Eds.), Inhibition in cognition (pp. 185–210). Washington: APA Press.
Framing effects are said to indicate irrationality in decision-making because they illustrate that linguistically different descriptions of equivalent options lead to inconsistent choices (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Framing effects occur when different framed but equivalent options lead to different choices, demonstrating preference reversals even though options are mathematically equivalent. Most people prefer the sure option in the gain frame; however, they prefer the risky option when the scenario is framed as a loss. For recent critical tests comparing prospect theory and fuzzy-trace theory, see Kuhberger and Tanner (2009).
FTT explains framing in terms of verbatim (quantitative, calculative, processing) and gist (categorically driven, qualitative) processing (Reyna & Brainerd, 1991, 1995: Reyna, Lloyd & Brainerd, 2003). Starting with the categorical nominal (e.g. save some vs. save none); going to ordinal (e.g. save fewer vs. save more) if that is not enough, and finally using more precise information (e.g. numerical, scales, continuum) when it becomes necessary.
When presented with statistical information, people actually extract dual-memory representations that code the gist of the information (qualitatively) and the verbatim information for decision making is encoded as some risk or a higher risk rather than exact numbers. Simultaneously, this lowest level is a categorical distinction (no risk, some risk), but when both choices in the decision have a level of uncertainty or risk, then the next level of precision would be required (e. g. low risk or high risk).
Different studies have documented opposite relations between perceived risk and behavior. Mills et al. (2008) tested a theoretical explanation based on FTT that reconciles these conflicting results. Adolescents completed alternative measures of risk perception that differed in cue specificity and response format. As predicted by FTT, measures that emphasized verbatim retrieval and quantitative processing produced positive correlations between perceived risk and risky behavior; risk perceptions reflected the extent to which adolescents engaged in risky behavior. In contrast, measures that assessed global, gist-based judgments of risk produced negative correlations; higher risk perceptions were associated with less risk taking, a protective rather than reflective relation. Endorsement of simple values and principles provided the greatest protection against risk taking. Results support a dual-processes interpretation (gist-verbatim cues) of the relation between risk perception and risk taking according to which observed relations depends on whether the cues in questions trigger verbatim or gist processing.
KEY REFERENCES
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263–291.
Kuhberger, A., & Tanner, C. (2009). Risky Choice Framing: Task Versions and a Comparison of Prospect Theory and Fuzzy-Trace Theory. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Advance online publication. doi:10.1002/ bdm.656
Mills, B., Reyna, V. F., & Estrada, S. (2008). Explaining Contradictory Relations Between Risk Perception and Risk Taking. Psychological Science, 19, 429-33.
Reyna, V. F. (2004). How people make decisions that involve risk: A dual process approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 60-66.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1991). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in choice: Gist extraction, truncation, and conversion. Journal of Behavior and Decision Making, 4, 249-262.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: an interim synthesis. Learning & Individual Differences, 7, 1-75.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Converging evidence supports fuzzy-trace theory? s nested sets hypothesis (but not the frequency hypothesis). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 278-280.
KEY REFERENCES
Kuhberger, A., & Tanner, C. (2009). Risky choice framing: Task versions and a comparison of prospect theory and fuzzy trace theory. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.656
Mills, B. A., Reyna, V. F., & Estrada, S. (2008). Explaining contradictory relations between risk perception and risk taking. Psychological Science, 5, 429-434.
Reyna, V. F. (1991). Class inclusion, the conjunction fallacy, and other cognitive illusions. Developmental Review, 11, 317–336.
Reyna, V. F., & Adam, M. B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325-342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C.J. (1991). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in choice. Gist extraction, truncation, and conversion. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 4, 249−262.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1994). The origins of probability judgment: a review of data and theories. In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective probability. New York: Wiley.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Converging evidence supports fuzzy-trace theory? s nested sets hypothesis (but not the frequency hypothesis). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 278-280.
Wolfe, C. R., & Reyna, V. F. (2010). Semantic coherence and fallacies in estimating joint probabilities. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 23, 203-223.
Memory is necessary for our ability to learn and to draw on past experience to predict future desires, events, or responses to outcomes. Yet the connection between properties of memory and judgment and choice has been underexplored (Weber & Johnson, 2009). During the past decade, memory considerations have played a more prominent role in explanations of JDM phenomena, attempting to leverage what we know about memory to provide insight into the processes underlying known decision phenomena (Reyna et al. 2003), but this is still a relatively underdeveloped area of behavioral decision research.
Most judgment and decision-making researchers have relegated memory to a secondary role; however, some studies have found that memory plays a central role in judgment and decision processes (Tversky & Koehler, 1994). FTT is one of those studies. FTT was the first theoretical approach to predict memory-reasoning independence, more specifically, between reasoning and working memory storage. In contrast to either heuristics-and-biases or adaptive-ecological approaches, FTT embraces inconsistencies in human reasoning by assuming: a) opposing dual processes that encode both verbatim and gist representations, with reliance on the latter whenever possible; b) dependence of reasoning on retrieval cues that access stored values and principles; and c) vulnerability of reasoning to processing interference from overlapping classes of events, which causes denominator neglect in risk or probability judgments (Reyna et al., 2003). The theory supplies a conception of rationality that distinguishes degrees of severity of errors in reasoning. It also includes a mechanism for achieving consistency in reasoning, a hallmark of rationality, by explaining how a person can treat superficially different reasoning problems in the same way if the problems share an underlying gist (Reyna, 2004). Rather than classifying reasoning as rational or irrational, degrees of rationality are proposed based on the processing underlying different kinds of errors across many tasks. Therefore, rationality is not an immutable trait, but changes from task to task and from one stage of development to another (Reyna et al., 2003).
KEY REFERENCES
Reyna, V. F. (2004). How people make decisions that involve risk: A dual process approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 60-66.
Reyna, V.F. (2008). A Theory of Medical Decision Making and Health: Fuzzy Trace Theory. Medical Decision Making, 28(6), 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Adam, M. B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325-342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2008). Numeracy, ratio bias, and denominator neglect in judgments of risk and probability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18(1), 89-107.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Converging evidence supports fuzzy-trace theory’s nested sets hypothesis (but not the frequency hypothesis). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 278-280.
Tversky, A., and Koehler, D. J. (1994). Support theory: A nonextensional representation of subjective probability. Psychological Review, 101, 547–567.
Weber, E. U., & Johnson, E. J. (2009). Mindful judgment and decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 53-85.
Based on FTT, the Stone et al. (1994) work takes two methods commonly employed in epidemiology, incidence rates and relative risks, and examines their comparative effects on risk-avoidant behavior. They presented subjects with information about risks associated with different brands of tires and toothpaste and displayed that information either as incidence rates or as a relative risk ratio. According to most prescriptive decision rules, formally equivalent methods of communicating risk information should have identical effects on risk-taking behavior, even if the pertinent displays are different. However, their results shows that for the tires product, subjects given the relative risk format were willing to pay more money for a safer product than were subjects given the incidence rate format. The data supported an "editing" hypothesis, which suggests that extreme low-probability risks, such as those associated with tire blowouts, are edited to "essentially nil risk," while more moderate risks, such as those associated with periodontal disease, are considered to be small but significant. These findings are predicted by fuzzy trace theory and related models, which suggest that people reason on the basis of simplified representations rather than on the literal information available (Stone et al. 1994).
These papers showed that FTT applies to consumer preferences.
KEY REFERENCES
Carvalho, S. W., Block, L. G., Sivaramakrishnan, S., Manchanda, R. V., Mitakakis, C. (2008). Risk perception and risk avoidance: the role of cultural identity and personal relevance. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 25, 319-326.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision-making: implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1-44.
Stone E. R., Yates, J. F., & Parker, A. M. (1994). Risk communication: absolute versus relative expressions of low-probability risks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 60, 387-408.
Growing evidence suggests that being exposed to facts is not the same thing as being informed. In health and medical decision making, in particular, understanding numerical information (e.g., about risks and outcomes of treatments) is literally a matter of life and death, especially in this era in which patients and their health providers are inundated with numbers. Moreover, thinking that clinicians ordinarily make perfectly rational decisions has been largely falsified in the scientific literature; for example, Reyna, Lloyd and Whalen (2001) showed how physicians and patients had great difficulty understanding genetic risk and were prone to similar errors, despite vast differences in medical knowledge. Despite the success of traditional theories focused on reason, they do not account for all the variance in behavior, and dual-process theories, such as FTT, have been able to account for new phenomena, such as effects of emotion and experience, that are inexplicable from traditional perspectives. Like other people, also clinicians apply cognitive heuristics and fall in systematic errors which affect decisions in everyday life.
According to the ‘evidence-based’ medicine, decisions made by computation are superior to those made by intuition. FTT, instead, assumes the opposite: that intuitive processing is more sophisticated and more capable of making decisions that are in context. However, FTT does not claim that gist-based intuition is always superior, but that increases in performance—with the right kind of experience—are generally accompanied by increasing reliance on gist (meaningful) representations as contrasted with verbatim (literal) representations (Reyna, 2008a). For example, in medicine simply educating people with statistics has even been found to hinder prevention efforts. Due to low prevalences of HIV or cancer, for example, people tend to overestimate their risks. Consequently, interventions stressing the actual numbers may move people toward complacency as opposed to risk reduction (Reyna & Farley, 2006). When women learn that their actual risks for cancer are lower than they thought, they return for screening at a lower rate (Fagerlin, Zikmund-Fisher & Ubel, 2005). And some interventions to discourage adolescent drug use by presenting the risks have been shown to be ineffective or even to backfire (Lilienfeld, 2007; Reyna & Farley, 2006).
Following the evidence-based medicine, the Gail Model is one of the models that have been developed to quantify a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. The model incorporates a series of questions related to breast cancer risk factors. Answers to the questions are calculated into a Gail risk score. Women who score high on the test are encouraged to have increased surveillance and to consider breast cancer risk-reduction options. The Gail Model is often used in research studies to evaluate which women are at high risk for developing breast cancer. Reyna (2008) suggests that the flood of precise numerical data typical of health communication messages often impedes, rather than facilitates, making informed and appropriate health decisions. What researchers now know about how people process information and make risk judgments suggests new ways of packaging medical information to enable health consumers to make better, more truly informed choices. judgments by getting them to pay more attention to the precise facts. It won’t work—and it won’t lead to better choices. The same principle of gist-based reasoning should be allowed to guide patient decision making. “The key to informed consent,” according to Reyna, “is getting the gist” (Reyna, 2008). And the gist won’t necessarily correspond with the numbers.
Particularly problematic for physicians and patients is understanding risk estimates used to summarize the risks and benefits of medical interventions: relative risk reduction, absolute risk reduction, and number needed to treat (Nelson, Reyna, Fagerlin, Lipkus & Peters, 2008). Understanding and communicating risk is a crucial aspect in medical decision-making and this means to figure out how information about health and medicine is processes by patients and by physicians. Reyna (2008b) clearly discussed three claims that are grounded in FTT: 1) why precise information (e.g., about risk) does not work, 2) why a bridge is needed between health-relevant information and action, and 3) theory-based interventions that work (and why they work). Therefore, health communication it is not enough to present the facts and expect health consumers to remember and use them effectively. Health-care professionals and health policymakers need to package, present, and explain information in more meaningful ways that facilitate forming an appropriate gist. The following intervention strategies have been tested successfully in educational, medical, and health prevention contexts: Explain quantities qualitatively, display information visually, tailor the format to trigger the appropriate gist and cue the retrieval of health-related knowledge and values (for more information, see Reyna, 2008b; Reyna & Brainerd, 2007, 2008).
Research has shown that patients and their physicians have difficulty understanding a host of numerical concepts, especially risks and probabilities, and this often implies some problems with numeracy, which is define as mathematical proficiency. FTT has deeply investigated ratio concepts spanning cognitive development (on fractions, proportions, and probability judgment), judgment and decision making (on ratio bias and frequency effects), and health-related risk communication on numeracy (i.e. Reyna & Brainerd, 2007; Reyna & Brainerd, 2008 for a review of the literature).
Much of the research on medical decision-making is not grounded in empirically supported theories of numeracy or mathematical cognition, which are crucial for designing evidence-based policies and interventions that are effective in reducing risk and improving medical decision making. A recent review (Reyna, Nelson, Han & Dieckmann, 2009) address this gap and outlines four theoretical approaches (psychophysical, computational, standard dual-process, and FTT), their implications for numeracy, and point to avenues for future research.
KEY REFERENCES
Fagerlin, A., Zikmund-Fisher, B.J., & Ubel, P. (2005). How making a risk estimate can change the feel of that risk: Shifting attitudes toward breast cancer risk in a general public survey. Patient Education & Counseling, 57, 294−299.
Lilienfeld, S.O. (2007). Psychological treatments that cause harm. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 53–70.
Lloyd, F. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1998). Physicians’ decisions and agency for health care policy and research guidelines predict medical outcomes for patients with chest pain [abstract]. Medical Decision Making, 18, 489.
Lloyd, F. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2001a). Clinical decision making and information management in the era of managed care. In R. C. Becker & J. S. Alpert (Eds.), Cardiovascular medicine: Practice and management (pp. 719–732). New York, NY: Arnold Publishing.
Lloyd, F. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2001b). A web exercise in evidence-based medicine using cognitive theory. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16, 94-99.
Lloyd, F., Reyna, V. F., & Whalen, P. (2001). Accuracy and ambiguity in counseling patients about genetic risk. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 2411-2413.
Nelson, W., Reyna, V. F., Fagerlin, A., Lipkus, I., & Peters, E. (2008). Clinical implications of numeracy: theory and practice. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 35, 261-274.
Reyna, V. F. (2010, April). The gist of diagnostic error. Invited keynote address, Clinical Reasoning Workshop and European Union Meetings, London, England.
Reyna, V. F., (2008a). Theories of medical decision making and health: an evidence-based approach. Medical Decision Making, 28, 829-833.
Reyna, V. F. (2008b). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2007). The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: Numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. Learning and Individual Differences, 17, 147-159.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2008). Numeracy, ratio-bias and denominator neglect in judgments of risk and probability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18, 89-107.
Reyna, V.F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision making: Implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1–44.
Reyna, V. F., & Lloyd, F. J. (2006). Physician decision-making and cardiac risk: Effects of knowledge, risk perception, risk tolerance, and fuzzy processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 12, 179-195.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision-making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F., & Whalen, P. (2001). Genetic testing and medical decision making. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 2406-2408.
Reyna, V. F., Nelson, W. L., Han, P. K., & Dieckmann, N. F. (2009). How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 943-973.
Children’s competence develops much earlier than what traditional theories predicted and the view of adults as a rational decision maker was totally undermined by empirical evidence. Adults fall in many systematic errors of reasoning and also experts have problems with ratios and probability estimates. This would imply that the same errors and biases found with adults should be even stronger with children and that is the point: paradoxically, there is empirical evidence that, for example, children sometimes reason and decide better than adults in typical judgment tasks (Reyna, 1996; Reyna & Ellis, 1994; Reyna & Farley, 2006 – see table 3). Developmental studies provide a unique and important perspective on adult behavior and they make sense of most surprising results. FTT predicts which reasoning and decision making tasks will elicit more “errors” within age, i.e. those that involve gist-based intuition.
Under FTT this is possible because reasoning develops from computational (verbatim) to intuitive (gist-based) thinking and this is the only one developmental theory that places intuition at the apex rather than at the nadir. This view of intuition is supported by developmental studies of children’s learning and of adults’ acquisition of expertise, which have demonstrated a progression from detail-oriented and computational processes (e.g., trading off the magnitudes of risk and reward) to fuzzy and intuitive processing (people process less information more qualitatively as development progresses).
According to FTT, the verbatim process and the intuitive process develop and work in parallel. This means that children, like adults, are capable of both intuitive and (rudimentary) computational process and they rely more than adults on precise and verbatim details. Instead, adults show a “fuzzy-processing preference” which represents a system-wide adaptation to the limits of information processing, a means of avoiding systematic errors caused by poor verbatim memory. In this developmental interplay between the two parallel processes, reasoning errors are seen as related to different and independent components that work in parallel during the interaction of the processes, rather than the same component or ability which is missing or present at a certain point of the development.
In the field of cognitive development, where there is a big gap between the research about the early children’s competence and about the adults’ incompetence, the fuzzy-trace theory is currently the only one that provides a convincing developmental trajectory which predict apparently contradictory results in judgment and decision-making.
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1990). Gist is the grist: Fuzzy-trace theory and the new intuitionism. Developmental Review, 10, 3-47.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1992). Explaining "memory-free" reasoning. Psychological Science, 3, 332-339.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1993). Memory independence and memory interference in cognitive development. Psychological Review, 100, 42-67.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2007). Explaining developmental reversals in false memory. Psychological Science, 18, 442-448.
Brainerd, C. J., Reyna, V. F., & Howe, M. L. (2009). Trichotomous processes in early memory development, aging, and cognitive impairment: a unified theory. Psychological Review, 116, 783-832.
Mills, B. A., Reyna, V. F., & Estrada, S. (2008). Explaining contradictory relations between risk perception and risk taking. Psychological Science, 5, 429-434.
Reyna, V. F. (1991). Class inclusion, the conjunction fallacy, and other cognitive illusions. Developmental Review, 11, 317-336.
Reyna, V. F. (1995). Interference effects in memory and reasoning: A fuzzy-trace theory analysis. In F. N. Dempster & C. J. Brainerd (Eds.), Interference and inhibition in cognition (pp. 29–59). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Reyna, V. F. (1996). Conceptions of memory development, with implications for reasoning and decision making. Annals of Child Development, 12, 87-118.
Reyna, V. F. (2004). How people make decisions that involve risk. A dual-processes approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 60–66.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Adam, M. B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325-342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1990). Fuzzy processing in transitivity development. Annals of Operations Research, 23, 37-63.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C.J. (1991). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in choice: Gist extraction, truncation, and conversion. Journal of Behavior and Decision Making, 4, 249-262.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1994). The origins of probability judgment: A review of data and theories. In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective probability (pp. 239–272). New York, NY: Wiley.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis. Learning & Individual Differences, 7, 1-75.
Reyna, V. F., & Ellis, S. C. (1994). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in children’s risky decision making. Psychological Science, 5, 275-279.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1994). The development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instruction, and retention interval. Developmental Psychology, 30, 178-191.
One of the crucial aspects of FTT is the constant attention towards the practical implications of its results. This means, for example, to provide practical suggestions for interventions to reduce adolescent risk taking with clear and empirically supported recommendations for public policy. See table 1 of Reyna & Farley (2006) for an example about some possible strategies that emerge from decades of strong empirical evidence.
Another relevant topic is the effect of numeracy on perception of health risks and medical decision making. Specifically, according to FTT, precise information does not necessarily work to communicate health information. Interventions based on fuzzy-trace theory that use the following principles have shown success in fields such as education and medicine.
Reyna (2008) and Reyna and Brainerd (2008) provides several examples about the best ways to display risk proportions in order to be comprehensible both for patients and health care professionals. For example:
One of the practical implications of FTT’s attention for memory is related to the accuracy of people’s testimony. In particular, children are increasingly called upon to testify in courts, most commonly in cases of maltreatment or divorce and child custody. Parents, guardians, law professionals and others need to be able to assess the validity of children’s testimony and protect children’s memories during questioning. FTT gave precise directions to improve the accuracy of children’s testimony (Reyna, Mills, Estrada & Brainerd, 2006). Children can be reliable witnesses if they are encouraged to report verbatim memories, and if they are protected from suggestions. The goal of an investigator should be to improve a child’s retrieval of verbatim traces of memory. Techniques for doing this include the following:
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1996). Mere memory testing creates false memories in children. Developmental Psychology, 32, 467–476.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2005). The Science of False Memory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brainerd, C.J., Reyna, V. F., & Poole, D. A. (2000). Fuzzy-trace theory and false memory: Memory theory in the courtroom. In D. F. Bjorklund (Ed.), False memory creation in children and adults (pp. 93–127). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lloyd, F., & Reyna, V.F. (2001). A web exercise in evidence-based medicine using cognitive theory. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16, 94-99.
Payne, D. G., Elie, C. J., Blackwell, J. M., & Neuschatz, J. S. (1996). Memory illusions: Recalling, recognizing, and recollecting events that never occurred. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 261–285.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V.F., & Adam, M.B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325–342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2007). The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: Numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. Learning and Individual Differences, 17, 147–159.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2008). Numeracy, ratio bias, and denominator neglect in judgments of risk and probability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18, 89-107.
Reyna, V. F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision making. Implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1-44.
Reyna, V.F., & Hamilton, A. J. (2001). The importance of memory in informed consent for surgical risk. Medical Decision Making, 21, 152-155.
Reyna, V. F., Mills, B., Estrada, S., & Brainerd, C. J. (2006). False memory in children: Data, theory, and legal implications. In M. Toglia & D. Read, D. F. Ross, & R. C. L.Lindsay (Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness psychology: Memory for events (pp. 473–510). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reyna, V. F., Nelson, W. L., Han, P. K., & Dieckmann, N. F. (2009). How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 943-973.
Other links:
Cornell University – Department of Human Development:
Confabulation
Framing (social sciences)
Motivated forgetting
Essence
Cognitive Psychology
Social Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Emotion
Reason
Framing
Risk
Decision Making
Risk perception
Cognitive development
Gestalt psychology
Working Memory
Behavioral Economics
Consumer's Risk
History and assumptions
Although the computer metaphor provided the explanatory framework of cognition for more than thirty years, major phenomena of judgment and decision-making are unrelated to computational capacity in working memory. Researchers have studied many tasks, and each has shown the same result: accuracy of reasoning and memory are often independent (see Reyna & Kiernan, 1994). In response to the mounting evidence for memory and judgment independence, Valerie Reyna and Charles Brainerd introduced Fuzzy-Trace Theory to explain this finding and to accommodate the fact that information (held and operated on in memory) influences judgment and decision-making. This theory emerged by linking basic concepts in psycholinguistic research and Gestalt theory.In 1990, two articles were published that introduced FTT as a comprehensive theory: Brainerd and Reyna (1990) reviewed prior work on working memory capacity and related it to reasoning, judgment, and decision-making (e.g., digit span, dual-task interference, as well as other measures of capacity such as measures of memory for information in problems, e.g., in framing problems). Reyna and Brainerd (1990) reviewed research on transitive inference, also relating effects to working memory capacity FTT accounts for this independence through the assumption that people form two kinds of mental re-presentations, verbatim and gist representations, but rely primarily on gist. A current overview is found in Reyna and Brainerd (1995). See also, Reyna, Lloyd and Brainerd (2003).
Gist representations are fuzzy (less precise than verbatim representations) traces of experience in memory, hence the name fuzzy-trace theory. Moreover, gist refers to the meaning an individual extracts from information (i.e., the semantic representations), which reflects the individual’s knowledge, understanding, culture, and developmental level. Verbatim representations, instead, are detailed and quantitative.
People are generally capable of both forms of thinking, but when they make judgments the gist process prevails. This means, for example, that even if people are capable of understanding ratio concepts like probabilities and prevalence rates (which are the standard for the presentation of health- and risk-related data), their choice will be governed by the bottom-line meaning (“That’s a high risk”; or “I am going to get cancer like my sister did”), not the number (Reyna, 2008).
A relevant concept in FTT is called "task calibration"; this concept explains how features of the task determine which memory representation is used (but a gist default is assumed). For example, Reyna and Kiernan (1994, 1995) presented data for adults (as well as children) showing that the relations between memory and reasoning could be actively manipulated to produce negative dependency, positive dependency, or independence by varying reliance on verbatim versus gist memory representations.
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1990). Gist is the grist: fuzzy-trace theory and the new intuitionism. Developmental Review, 10, 3-47.
Reyna, V.F. (2008). A Theory of Medical Decision Making and Health: Fuzzy Trace Theory. Medical Decision Making, 28(6), 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1990). Fuzzy processing in transitivity development. Annals of Operations Research, 23, 37-63.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis. Learning and Individual Differences, 7, 1–75.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1994). The development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instruction, and retention interval. Developmental Psychology, 30, 178-191.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1995). Children’s memory and metaphorical interpretation. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10, 309-331.
Memory
FTT is not exclusively an account of memory but, rather, is an integrative model of cognition. It is integrative in two senses. First, FTT’s empirical focus is not confined to memory phenomena. It also deals with higher reasoning abilities and attempts to integrate theories and findings in the two domains by examining relations between memory and reasoning.FTT’s core assumptions concern the relations between memory (especially working memory) and judgment-and-decision-making. The following is a short précis of relevant work, citing a few papers for illustrative purposes. In 1990, two articles were published that introduced fuzzy trace theory as a comprehensive theory: Brainerd and Reyna (1990) reviewed prior work on working memory capacity and related it to reasoning, judgment, and decision making (e.g., digit span, dual-task interference, as well as other measures of capacity such as measures of memory for information in problems, e.g., in framing problems). Reyna and Brainerd (1990) reviewed research on transitive inference, also relating effects to working memory capacity (e.g., increasing memory load had no effect on transitive reasoning when the paradigm allowed reasoning to be based on gist representations rather than verbatim representations). Reyna (1995) is a chapter that summarizes research on working memory capacity and its relation to judgment-and-decision-making. Reyna and Brainerd (1995) is probably the most comprehensive overview of the theory with respect to the early work on working memory capacity; they summarize prior research on working memory capacity and its relation to performance in many paradigms.
Several paradoxical results were key in shaping the theory: (1) independence between measures of working memory capacity and performance on judgment-and-decision making tasks, even when memory for the information in the tasks (within subjects) was assessed (measurement sensitivity was dealt with at length, e.g., Brainerd & Reyna, 1992, and mathematical models were developed); (2) interference of memory with judgment-and-decision-making such that better memory produced worse reasoning (and conversely increasing memory load produced better reasoning) under theoretically specified conditions. As a result of many findings that violated standard predictions about working memory capacity, FTT introduced the idea that people encode two kinds of memories (verbatim and gist) but mainly rely on gist in judgment-and-decision-making tasks (and on verbatim memory in standard working memory tasks); "task calibration" explained how features of the task determined which memory representation is used (but a gist default is assumed). Age trends in false memory are another area in which FTT has generated counterintuitive predictions about memory development (Brainerd, Reyna, & Ceci, 2008; Reyna & Brainerd, 1995).
FTT relies primarily upon five principles to explain memory development - where, for the most part, memory development boils down to ontogenetic variations in true- and false-memory responses to recognition and recall tasks (Brainerd & Reyna, 2004). Those principles are: (a) parallel storage of verbatim and gist traces, (b) dissociated retrieval of verbatim and gist traces, (c) differential survival rates for verbatim and gist traces, (d) retrieval phenomenology, and (e) developmental variability in verbatim and gist memory.
Brainerd, Reyna and Howe (2009) have recently proposed a unified theory of recall which combines the traditional dual processes of recollection and familiarity with a reconstruction process. The theory is then embedded in a hidden Markov model that measures all 3 processes with low-burden tasks that are appropriate for even young children. This model can be applied to many different areas such as memory development, aging, neurocognitive impairment, and other clinical populations.
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1990). Gist is the grist: Fuzzy-trace theory and the new intuitionism. Developmental Review, 10, 3-47.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1992). Explaining memory-free reasoning. Psychological Science, 3, 332-339.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1992). The memory independence effect: What do the data show? What do the theories claim? Developmental Review, 12, 164-186.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1993). Memory independence and memory interference in cognitive development. Psychological Review, 100, 42– 67.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2004). Fuzzy-trace theory and memory development. Developmental Review, 24, 396-439.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2005). The science of false memory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brainerd, C. J., Reyna, V. F., & Ceci, S. J. (2008). Developmental reversals in false memory: A review of data and theory. Psychological Bulletin, 134, 343–382.
Brainerd, C. J., Reyna, V. F., & Howe, M. L. (2009). Trichotomous processes in early memory development, aging, and cognitive impairment: a unified theory. Psychological Review, 116, 783-832.
Reyna, V. F. (1995). Interference effects in memory and reasoning: A fuzzy-trace theory analysis. In F. N. Dempster & C. J. Brainerd (Eds.), Interference and inhibition in cognition (pp. 29–59). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Reyna, V.F. (2008). A Theory of Medical Decision Making and Health: Fuzzy Trace Theory. Medical Decision Making, 28(6), 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1990). Fuzzy processing in transitivity development. Annals of Operations Research, 23, 37-63.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis. Learning and Individual Differences, 7, 1–75.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1994). The development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instruction, and retention interval. Developmental Psychology, 30, 178-191.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1995). Children's memory and metaphorical interpretation. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 10, 309-331.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision-making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Neuroscience
In many neuroscience papers (e.g. Garoff et al., 2005; Dennis et al., 2008; Aizpurua & Koutstaal, 2010; Ally et al., 2010; Gutchess et al. 2010) gist-verbatim distinctions are based on FTT. Garoff et al. (2005) examined whether neural activity at encoding predicts whether an object will subsequently elicit specific as compared to general memory (similar to conjoint recognition, Brainerd, Reyna & Mojardin, 1994). For example, results from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) suggest that the right fusiform cortex is associated with specific feature encoding, while the left fusiform cortex is involved in more general object encoding.Information from childhood to old age shows that FTT verbatim and gist distinctions are essential and characterize memory development across the life span. Aged adults gradually lose verbatim memory. Compared to young adults, aged adults show not only a reduction in true memories but also an increase in false memories. Dennis et al. (2008) investigated the neural bases of these age effects using functional magnetic resonance imaging and a false memory task that resembles the Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm. Younger and older participants were scanned during a word recognition task that included studied words and new words that were strongly associated with studied words (critical lures). The results suggest that older adults' deficits in true memories reflect a decline in recollection (verbatim) processes mediated by the hippocampus, whereas their increased tendency to have false memories reflects their reliance on semantic gist mediated by the lateral temporal cortex (Dennis et al., 2008).
In a study by Aizpurua and Koutstaal (2010) older and younger adults were tested on a picture recognition task that required them to make episodic memory decisions at an item-specific (verbatim) versus category-based (gist-based) level on randomly intermixed trials. Their findings suggest that aging attenuates the capacity to adaptively and flexibly use episodic memory at different levels of specificity. Reyna and Mills (2007) summarize neurocognitive development from childhood to adult age, showing that verbatim-gist distinctions are essential in characterizing memory across the lifespan.
KEY REFERENCES
Aizpurua, A., & Koutstaal, W. (2010). Aging and flexible remembering: contributions of conceptual span, fluid intelligence, and frontal functioning. Psychology & Aging, 25, 193-207.
Ally, B., McKeever, J., Waring, J., & Budson, A. (2009). Preserved frontal memorial processing for pictures in patients with mild cognitive impairment. Neuropsychologia, 47, 2044-2055.
Dennis, N., Hongkeun, K., & Cabeza, R. (2008). Age-related differences in brain activity during true and false memory retrieval. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20, 1390-1402.
Garoff, R., Slotnick, S., & Schacter, D. (2005). The neural origins of specific and general memory: the role of the fusiform cortex. Neuropsychologia, 43, 847-859.
Gutchess, A., Kensinger, E., & Schacter, D. (2010). Functional neuroimaging of self-referential encoding with age. Neuropsychologia, 48, 211-219.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: an interim synthesis. Learning & Individual Differences, 7, 1-75.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Interference processes in fuzzy-trace theory: Aging, Alzheimer's disease, and development. In C. MacLeod & D. Gorfein (Eds.), Inhibition in cognition (pp. 185–210). Washington: APA Press.
Risk perception
Risky decisions involve uncertain negative consequences, framing decisions as gains versus losses changes peoples preference for taking risks.Framing effects are said to indicate irrationality in decision-making because they illustrate that linguistically different descriptions of equivalent options lead to inconsistent choices (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979). Framing effects occur when different framed but equivalent options lead to different choices, demonstrating preference reversals even though options are mathematically equivalent. Most people prefer the sure option in the gain frame; however, they prefer the risky option when the scenario is framed as a loss. For recent critical tests comparing prospect theory and fuzzy-trace theory, see Kuhberger and Tanner (2009).
FTT explains framing in terms of verbatim (quantitative, calculative, processing) and gist (categorically driven, qualitative) processing (Reyna & Brainerd, 1991, 1995: Reyna, Lloyd & Brainerd, 2003). Starting with the categorical nominal (e.g. save some vs. save none); going to ordinal (e.g. save fewer vs. save more) if that is not enough, and finally using more precise information (e.g. numerical, scales, continuum) when it becomes necessary.
When presented with statistical information, people actually extract dual-memory representations that code the gist of the information (qualitatively) and the verbatim information for decision making is encoded as some risk or a higher risk rather than exact numbers. Simultaneously, this lowest level is a categorical distinction (no risk, some risk), but when both choices in the decision have a level of uncertainty or risk, then the next level of precision would be required (e. g. low risk or high risk).
Different studies have documented opposite relations between perceived risk and behavior. Mills et al. (2008) tested a theoretical explanation based on FTT that reconciles these conflicting results. Adolescents completed alternative measures of risk perception that differed in cue specificity and response format. As predicted by FTT, measures that emphasized verbatim retrieval and quantitative processing produced positive correlations between perceived risk and risky behavior; risk perceptions reflected the extent to which adolescents engaged in risky behavior. In contrast, measures that assessed global, gist-based judgments of risk produced negative correlations; higher risk perceptions were associated with less risk taking, a protective rather than reflective relation. Endorsement of simple values and principles provided the greatest protection against risk taking. Results support a dual-processes interpretation (gist-verbatim cues) of the relation between risk perception and risk taking according to which observed relations depends on whether the cues in questions trigger verbatim or gist processing.
KEY REFERENCES
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263–291.
Kuhberger, A., & Tanner, C. (2009). Risky Choice Framing: Task Versions and a Comparison of Prospect Theory and Fuzzy-Trace Theory. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Advance online publication. doi:10.1002/ bdm.656
Mills, B., Reyna, V. F., & Estrada, S. (2008). Explaining Contradictory Relations Between Risk Perception and Risk Taking. Psychological Science, 19, 429-33.
Reyna, V. F. (2004). How people make decisions that involve risk: A dual process approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 60-66.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1991). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in choice: Gist extraction, truncation, and conversion. Journal of Behavior and Decision Making, 4, 249-262.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: an interim synthesis. Learning & Individual Differences, 7, 1-75.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Converging evidence supports fuzzy-trace theory? s nested sets hypothesis (but not the frequency hypothesis). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 278-280.
Risk estimation and probability judgments
With respect to probability judgment and expected-value tasks, risky choice and framing effects were early applications of the theory (e.g., Reyna & Brainerd, 1991; for a review of probability judgment and expected value, see Reyna & Brainerd, 1994, which explicitly discussed evidence for and against working-memory-capacity explanations for performance in judgment-and-decision-making tasks). The manipulations performed in Reyna and Brainerd (1991) were a critical test of these predictions of FTT (which have been replicated, see Kuhberger & Tanner, 2009). Early work showed that working memory was independent of probability judgment, and later work cashed this out to explain conjunction fallacy (e.g., Reyna, 1991), disjunction fallacy (e.g., Reyna & Adam, 2003), and other paradoxical relations between memory representations and risk estimation/probability judgments (e.g., Mills, Reyna, & Estrada, 2008).KEY REFERENCES
Kuhberger, A., & Tanner, C. (2009). Risky choice framing: Task versions and a comparison of prospect theory and fuzzy trace theory. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. DOI: 10.1002/bdm.656
Mills, B. A., Reyna, V. F., & Estrada, S. (2008). Explaining contradictory relations between risk perception and risk taking. Psychological Science, 5, 429-434.
Reyna, V. F. (1991). Class inclusion, the conjunction fallacy, and other cognitive illusions. Developmental Review, 11, 317–336.
Reyna, V. F., & Adam, M. B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325-342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C.J. (1991). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in choice. Gist extraction, truncation, and conversion. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 4, 249−262.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1994). The origins of probability judgment: a review of data and theories. In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective probability. New York: Wiley.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Converging evidence supports fuzzy-trace theory? s nested sets hypothesis (but not the frequency hypothesis). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 278-280.
Wolfe, C. R., & Reyna, V. F. (2010). Semantic coherence and fallacies in estimating joint probabilities. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 23, 203-223.
Decision-making
From the start, in the 1950s, Judgment and Decision Making (JDM) research has been dominated by mathematical models that were its starting point in the form of normative models. This focus on economics and statistics led JDM research to underutilize the findings and methods of psychology. The recent use of neuroscience methods to complement the behavioral research has changed the JDM field and researches now realize that the brain that decides is the same brain that learns and remembers (Weber & Johnson, 2009).Memory is necessary for our ability to learn and to draw on past experience to predict future desires, events, or responses to outcomes. Yet the connection between properties of memory and judgment and choice has been underexplored (Weber & Johnson, 2009). During the past decade, memory considerations have played a more prominent role in explanations of JDM phenomena, attempting to leverage what we know about memory to provide insight into the processes underlying known decision phenomena (Reyna et al. 2003), but this is still a relatively underdeveloped area of behavioral decision research.
Most judgment and decision-making researchers have relegated memory to a secondary role; however, some studies have found that memory plays a central role in judgment and decision processes (Tversky & Koehler, 1994). FTT is one of those studies. FTT was the first theoretical approach to predict memory-reasoning independence, more specifically, between reasoning and working memory storage. In contrast to either heuristics-and-biases or adaptive-ecological approaches, FTT embraces inconsistencies in human reasoning by assuming: a) opposing dual processes that encode both verbatim and gist representations, with reliance on the latter whenever possible; b) dependence of reasoning on retrieval cues that access stored values and principles; and c) vulnerability of reasoning to processing interference from overlapping classes of events, which causes denominator neglect in risk or probability judgments (Reyna et al., 2003). The theory supplies a conception of rationality that distinguishes degrees of severity of errors in reasoning. It also includes a mechanism for achieving consistency in reasoning, a hallmark of rationality, by explaining how a person can treat superficially different reasoning problems in the same way if the problems share an underlying gist (Reyna, 2004). Rather than classifying reasoning as rational or irrational, degrees of rationality are proposed based on the processing underlying different kinds of errors across many tasks. Therefore, rationality is not an immutable trait, but changes from task to task and from one stage of development to another (Reyna et al., 2003).
KEY REFERENCES
Reyna, V. F. (2004). How people make decisions that involve risk: A dual process approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 60-66.
Reyna, V.F. (2008). A Theory of Medical Decision Making and Health: Fuzzy Trace Theory. Medical Decision Making, 28(6), 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Adam, M. B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325-342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2008). Numeracy, ratio bias, and denominator neglect in judgments of risk and probability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18(1), 89-107.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reyna, V. F., & Mills, B. A. (2007). Converging evidence supports fuzzy-trace theory’s nested sets hypothesis (but not the frequency hypothesis). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30, 278-280.
Tversky, A., and Koehler, D. J. (1994). Support theory: A nonextensional representation of subjective probability. Psychological Review, 101, 547–567.
Weber, E. U., & Johnson, E. J. (2009). Mindful judgment and decision making. Annual Review of Psychology, 60, 53-85.
Fuzzy-trace theory of management and economics
Some management papers applied the gist-verbatim distinctions of FTT (Carvalho et al., 2008; Stone et al. 1994). Carvalho et al. (2008) examines the roles of cultural similarity and personal relevance in consumers' perceptions of the risk of food-borne contamination and their intentions to reduce consumption of this food. They based their investigation on the fact that people simultaneously encode multiple mental representations of their experiences from precise verbatim information to “fuzzy gist” representations, which they define as the essential meanings filtered through experience and cultural, affective, and developmental factors (Reyna & Farley, 2006). In other words, they presume that one's evaluation of how “at-risk” he or she is can be influenced both by specific information learned as well as by the fuzzy processing preference. Research over the last few years has begun to explore the factors that influence the decision maker's gist of a risky situation. One such important factor is perceived proximity to a risk. The authors demonstrates that consumers are more concerned by the threat of a likely food-borne illness if the contamination occurred in a culturally similar location, regardless of physical or geographical proximity to the consumer. However, when the event is highly personally relevant, consumers feel threatened, which leads to message denial and a reversal of the facilitating effects of cultural similarity (Carvalho et al., 2008). This article illustrates a core idea of fuzzy trace theory that people rely on the gist of information, its bottom-line meaning, as opposed to verbatim details in judgment and decision making. This idea explains why precise information (e.g., about risk) is not necessarily effective in encouraging prevention behaviors. People can get the facts right, and still not derive the proper meaning, which is key to informed decision making (Reyna, 2008)Based on FTT, the Stone et al. (1994) work takes two methods commonly employed in epidemiology, incidence rates and relative risks, and examines their comparative effects on risk-avoidant behavior. They presented subjects with information about risks associated with different brands of tires and toothpaste and displayed that information either as incidence rates or as a relative risk ratio. According to most prescriptive decision rules, formally equivalent methods of communicating risk information should have identical effects on risk-taking behavior, even if the pertinent displays are different. However, their results shows that for the tires product, subjects given the relative risk format were willing to pay more money for a safer product than were subjects given the incidence rate format. The data supported an "editing" hypothesis, which suggests that extreme low-probability risks, such as those associated with tire blowouts, are edited to "essentially nil risk," while more moderate risks, such as those associated with periodontal disease, are considered to be small but significant. These findings are predicted by fuzzy trace theory and related models, which suggest that people reason on the basis of simplified representations rather than on the literal information available (Stone et al. 1994).
These papers showed that FTT applies to consumer preferences.
KEY REFERENCES
Carvalho, S. W., Block, L. G., Sivaramakrishnan, S., Manchanda, R. V., Mitakakis, C. (2008). Risk perception and risk avoidance: the role of cultural identity and personal relevance. International Journal of Research in Marketing, 25, 319-326.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision-making: implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1-44.
Stone E. R., Yates, J. F., & Parker, A. M. (1994). Risk communication: absolute versus relative expressions of low-probability risks. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 60, 387-408.
Fuzzy-trace theory and medical decision making
FTT has been currently testing in many different areas such as probabilistic reasoning, medical decision-making, health numeracy, risk perception and risk taking. Moreover, FTT is a process model of risky decision making (and other domains) which incorporates dual processes (verbatim-based analysis vs. gist-based intuition; intuition was defined in the earliest papers), drawing on classic memory distinctions between controlled (conscious) and automatic (unconscious) processes; these assumptions have been incorporated in mathematical models and tested for goodness-of-fit, as well as tested experimentally.Growing evidence suggests that being exposed to facts is not the same thing as being informed. In health and medical decision making, in particular, understanding numerical information (e.g., about risks and outcomes of treatments) is literally a matter of life and death, especially in this era in which patients and their health providers are inundated with numbers. Moreover, thinking that clinicians ordinarily make perfectly rational decisions has been largely falsified in the scientific literature; for example, Reyna, Lloyd and Whalen (2001) showed how physicians and patients had great difficulty understanding genetic risk and were prone to similar errors, despite vast differences in medical knowledge. Despite the success of traditional theories focused on reason, they do not account for all the variance in behavior, and dual-process theories, such as FTT, have been able to account for new phenomena, such as effects of emotion and experience, that are inexplicable from traditional perspectives. Like other people, also clinicians apply cognitive heuristics and fall in systematic errors which affect decisions in everyday life.
According to the ‘evidence-based’ medicine, decisions made by computation are superior to those made by intuition. FTT, instead, assumes the opposite: that intuitive processing is more sophisticated and more capable of making decisions that are in context. However, FTT does not claim that gist-based intuition is always superior, but that increases in performance—with the right kind of experience—are generally accompanied by increasing reliance on gist (meaningful) representations as contrasted with verbatim (literal) representations (Reyna, 2008a). For example, in medicine simply educating people with statistics has even been found to hinder prevention efforts. Due to low prevalences of HIV or cancer, for example, people tend to overestimate their risks. Consequently, interventions stressing the actual numbers may move people toward complacency as opposed to risk reduction (Reyna & Farley, 2006). When women learn that their actual risks for cancer are lower than they thought, they return for screening at a lower rate (Fagerlin, Zikmund-Fisher & Ubel, 2005). And some interventions to discourage adolescent drug use by presenting the risks have been shown to be ineffective or even to backfire (Lilienfeld, 2007; Reyna & Farley, 2006).
Following the evidence-based medicine, the Gail Model is one of the models that have been developed to quantify a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. The model incorporates a series of questions related to breast cancer risk factors. Answers to the questions are calculated into a Gail risk score. Women who score high on the test are encouraged to have increased surveillance and to consider breast cancer risk-reduction options. The Gail Model is often used in research studies to evaluate which women are at high risk for developing breast cancer. Reyna (2008) suggests that the flood of precise numerical data typical of health communication messages often impedes, rather than facilitates, making informed and appropriate health decisions. What researchers now know about how people process information and make risk judgments suggests new ways of packaging medical information to enable health consumers to make better, more truly informed choices. judgments by getting them to pay more attention to the precise facts. It won’t work—and it won’t lead to better choices. The same principle of gist-based reasoning should be allowed to guide patient decision making. “The key to informed consent,” according to Reyna, “is getting the gist” (Reyna, 2008). And the gist won’t necessarily correspond with the numbers.
Particularly problematic for physicians and patients is understanding risk estimates used to summarize the risks and benefits of medical interventions: relative risk reduction, absolute risk reduction, and number needed to treat (Nelson, Reyna, Fagerlin, Lipkus & Peters, 2008). Understanding and communicating risk is a crucial aspect in medical decision-making and this means to figure out how information about health and medicine is processes by patients and by physicians. Reyna (2008b) clearly discussed three claims that are grounded in FTT: 1) why precise information (e.g., about risk) does not work, 2) why a bridge is needed between health-relevant information and action, and 3) theory-based interventions that work (and why they work). Therefore, health communication it is not enough to present the facts and expect health consumers to remember and use them effectively. Health-care professionals and health policymakers need to package, present, and explain information in more meaningful ways that facilitate forming an appropriate gist. The following intervention strategies have been tested successfully in educational, medical, and health prevention contexts: Explain quantities qualitatively, display information visually, tailor the format to trigger the appropriate gist and cue the retrieval of health-related knowledge and values (for more information, see Reyna, 2008b; Reyna & Brainerd, 2007, 2008).
Research has shown that patients and their physicians have difficulty understanding a host of numerical concepts, especially risks and probabilities, and this often implies some problems with numeracy, which is define as mathematical proficiency. FTT has deeply investigated ratio concepts spanning cognitive development (on fractions, proportions, and probability judgment), judgment and decision making (on ratio bias and frequency effects), and health-related risk communication on numeracy (i.e. Reyna & Brainerd, 2007; Reyna & Brainerd, 2008 for a review of the literature).
Much of the research on medical decision-making is not grounded in empirically supported theories of numeracy or mathematical cognition, which are crucial for designing evidence-based policies and interventions that are effective in reducing risk and improving medical decision making. A recent review (Reyna, Nelson, Han & Dieckmann, 2009) address this gap and outlines four theoretical approaches (psychophysical, computational, standard dual-process, and FTT), their implications for numeracy, and point to avenues for future research.
KEY REFERENCES
Fagerlin, A., Zikmund-Fisher, B.J., & Ubel, P. (2005). How making a risk estimate can change the feel of that risk: Shifting attitudes toward breast cancer risk in a general public survey. Patient Education & Counseling, 57, 294−299.
Lilienfeld, S.O. (2007). Psychological treatments that cause harm. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2, 53–70.
Lloyd, F. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1998). Physicians’ decisions and agency for health care policy and research guidelines predict medical outcomes for patients with chest pain [abstract]. Medical Decision Making, 18, 489.
Lloyd, F. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2001a). Clinical decision making and information management in the era of managed care. In R. C. Becker & J. S. Alpert (Eds.), Cardiovascular medicine: Practice and management (pp. 719–732). New York, NY: Arnold Publishing.
Lloyd, F. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2001b). A web exercise in evidence-based medicine using cognitive theory. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16, 94-99.
Lloyd, F., Reyna, V. F., & Whalen, P. (2001). Accuracy and ambiguity in counseling patients about genetic risk. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 2411-2413.
Nelson, W., Reyna, V. F., Fagerlin, A., Lipkus, I., & Peters, E. (2008). Clinical implications of numeracy: theory and practice. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 35, 261-274.
Reyna, V. F. (2010, April). The gist of diagnostic error. Invited keynote address, Clinical Reasoning Workshop and European Union Meetings, London, England.
Reyna, V. F., (2008a). Theories of medical decision making and health: an evidence-based approach. Medical Decision Making, 28, 829-833.
Reyna, V. F. (2008b). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2007). The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: Numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. Learning and Individual Differences, 17, 147-159.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2008). Numeracy, ratio-bias and denominator neglect in judgments of risk and probability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18, 89-107.
Reyna, V.F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision making: Implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1–44.
Reyna, V. F., & Lloyd, F. J. (2006). Physician decision-making and cardiac risk: Effects of knowledge, risk perception, risk tolerance, and fuzzy processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 12, 179-195.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F. J., & Brainerd, C. J. (2003). Memory, development, and rationality: An integrative theory of judgment and decision-making. In S. Schneider & J. Shanteau (Eds.), Emerging perspectives on judgment and decision research (pp. 201–245). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Reyna, V. F., Lloyd, F., & Whalen, P. (2001). Genetic testing and medical decision making. Archives of Internal Medicine, 161, 2406-2408.
Reyna, V. F., Nelson, W. L., Han, P. K., & Dieckmann, N. F. (2009). How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 943-973.
Cognitive development
The direction of development in reasoning is usually taken to be from intuition to computation. For example, the Piagetian account of the development was compelling and, for many years, dominated theorizing. According to Piaget, cognitive development follows a unidirectional progression from intuitive to formal and abstract reasoning. This implies: on the one hand that children do reasoning errors until the ultimate stage of formal operations is reached (more or less 12 years old); on the other hand, adults should be able to reason and to take decisions in a perfect rational way maximizing gains and minimizing losses. Both these predictions have been largely falsified in the last four decades.Children’s competence develops much earlier than what traditional theories predicted and the view of adults as a rational decision maker was totally undermined by empirical evidence. Adults fall in many systematic errors of reasoning and also experts have problems with ratios and probability estimates. This would imply that the same errors and biases found with adults should be even stronger with children and that is the point: paradoxically, there is empirical evidence that, for example, children sometimes reason and decide better than adults in typical judgment tasks (Reyna, 1996; Reyna & Ellis, 1994; Reyna & Farley, 2006 – see table 3). Developmental studies provide a unique and important perspective on adult behavior and they make sense of most surprising results. FTT predicts which reasoning and decision making tasks will elicit more “errors” within age, i.e. those that involve gist-based intuition.
Under FTT this is possible because reasoning develops from computational (verbatim) to intuitive (gist-based) thinking and this is the only one developmental theory that places intuition at the apex rather than at the nadir. This view of intuition is supported by developmental studies of children’s learning and of adults’ acquisition of expertise, which have demonstrated a progression from detail-oriented and computational processes (e.g., trading off the magnitudes of risk and reward) to fuzzy and intuitive processing (people process less information more qualitatively as development progresses).
According to FTT, the verbatim process and the intuitive process develop and work in parallel. This means that children, like adults, are capable of both intuitive and (rudimentary) computational process and they rely more than adults on precise and verbatim details. Instead, adults show a “fuzzy-processing preference” which represents a system-wide adaptation to the limits of information processing, a means of avoiding systematic errors caused by poor verbatim memory. In this developmental interplay between the two parallel processes, reasoning errors are seen as related to different and independent components that work in parallel during the interaction of the processes, rather than the same component or ability which is missing or present at a certain point of the development.
In the field of cognitive development, where there is a big gap between the research about the early children’s competence and about the adults’ incompetence, the fuzzy-trace theory is currently the only one that provides a convincing developmental trajectory which predict apparently contradictory results in judgment and decision-making.
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1990). Gist is the grist: Fuzzy-trace theory and the new intuitionism. Developmental Review, 10, 3-47.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1992). Explaining "memory-free" reasoning. Psychological Science, 3, 332-339.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1993). Memory independence and memory interference in cognitive development. Psychological Review, 100, 42-67.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2007). Explaining developmental reversals in false memory. Psychological Science, 18, 442-448.
Brainerd, C. J., Reyna, V. F., & Howe, M. L. (2009). Trichotomous processes in early memory development, aging, and cognitive impairment: a unified theory. Psychological Review, 116, 783-832.
Mills, B. A., Reyna, V. F., & Estrada, S. (2008). Explaining contradictory relations between risk perception and risk taking. Psychological Science, 5, 429-434.
Reyna, V. F. (1991). Class inclusion, the conjunction fallacy, and other cognitive illusions. Developmental Review, 11, 317-336.
Reyna, V. F. (1995). Interference effects in memory and reasoning: A fuzzy-trace theory analysis. In F. N. Dempster & C. J. Brainerd (Eds.), Interference and inhibition in cognition (pp. 29–59). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Reyna, V. F. (1996). Conceptions of memory development, with implications for reasoning and decision making. Annals of Child Development, 12, 87-118.
Reyna, V. F. (2004). How people make decisions that involve risk. A dual-processes approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 13, 60–66.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy-trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V. F., & Adam, M. B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325-342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1990). Fuzzy processing in transitivity development. Annals of Operations Research, 23, 37-63.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C.J. (1991). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in choice: Gist extraction, truncation, and conversion. Journal of Behavior and Decision Making, 4, 249-262.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1994). The origins of probability judgment: A review of data and theories. In G. Wright & P. Ayton (Eds.), Subjective probability (pp. 239–272). New York, NY: Wiley.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (1995). Fuzzy-trace theory: An interim synthesis. Learning & Individual Differences, 7, 1-75.
Reyna, V. F., & Ellis, S. C. (1994). Fuzzy-trace theory and framing effects in children’s risky decision making. Psychological Science, 5, 275-279.
Reyna, V. F., & Kiernan, B. (1994). The development of gist versus verbatim memory in sentence recognition: Effects of lexical familiarity, semantic content, encoding instruction, and retention interval. Developmental Psychology, 30, 178-191.
Practical implications
Fuzzy-Trace Theory has offered relevant and robust results for a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying decision-making errors. These explanations of costly decision-making errors are relevant to businesspeople, physicians, politicians, lawyers, private citizens, and many other groups; descriptions are not sufficient anymore. Instead, strategies for improving decisions in everyday life are needed, and FTT offers such prescriptions.One of the crucial aspects of FTT is the constant attention towards the practical implications of its results. This means, for example, to provide practical suggestions for interventions to reduce adolescent risk taking with clear and empirically supported recommendations for public policy. See table 1 of Reyna & Farley (2006) for an example about some possible strategies that emerge from decades of strong empirical evidence.
Another relevant topic is the effect of numeracy on perception of health risks and medical decision making. Specifically, according to FTT, precise information does not necessarily work to communicate health information. Interventions based on fuzzy-trace theory that use the following principles have shown success in fields such as education and medicine.
Reyna (2008) and Reyna and Brainerd (2008) provides several examples about the best ways to display risk proportions in order to be comprehensible both for patients and health care professionals. For example:
- Explain quantities qualitatively. Do not rely solely on numbers when presenting information; also explain quantities, percentages, and probabilities verbally, stressing conceptual understanding (the bottom-line meaning of information) over precise memorization of verbatim facts or numbers (e.g., a 20% of breast cancer is actually a “high” risk). Provide verbal guidance in disentangling classes and class-inclusion relationships.
- Display information visually. When it is necessary to present information numerically, arrange numbers so that meaningful patterns or relationships among them “pop out.” More importantly, use graphical displays which help people extract the relevant gist. Useful formats for conveying relative risks and other comparative information include simple bar graphs and risk ladders. Pie charts are good for representing relative proportions. Line graphs are optimal for conveying the gist of a linear trend, such as survival and mortality curves or the effectiveness of a drug over time. Stacked bar graphs are useful for showing absolute risks; and Venn diagrams, two-by-two grids, and 100-square grids are useful for disentangling numerators and denominators and for eliminating errors from probability judgments.
- Avoid distracting gists. The class-inclusion confusion is especially likely to produce errors when a compelling gist such as a visually or emotionally salient detail, a story, or a stereotype draws a person away from the relevant data in the direction of considering extraneous information. (For example, given a display of seven cows and three horses, for example, children are asked whether there are more cows or more animals. Until the surprisingly advanced age of ten, children erroneously respond that there are more cows than animals - even after counting the number in each class aloud correctly. The children in the cows/horses example are more likely to answer the problem correctly when they are not shown a picture with the visually hard-to-ignore detail: relatively numerous cows.)
- Facilitate reexamination of problems. Encourage people to reexamine problems and edit their initial judgments. Although gist tends to speak louder than verbatim numbers, people can and do attend to the numbers to correct their ¬first gist-based impressions when cued to do so and when they are given the time and opportunity. This can help reduce errors.
One of the practical implications of FTT’s attention for memory is related to the accuracy of people’s testimony. In particular, children are increasingly called upon to testify in courts, most commonly in cases of maltreatment or divorce and child custody. Parents, guardians, law professionals and others need to be able to assess the validity of children’s testimony and protect children’s memories during questioning. FTT gave precise directions to improve the accuracy of children’s testimony (Reyna, Mills, Estrada & Brainerd, 2006). Children can be reliable witnesses if they are encouraged to report verbatim memories, and if they are protected from suggestions. The goal of an investigator should be to improve a child’s retrieval of verbatim traces of memory. Techniques for doing this include the following:
- Interview children as soon as possible after an event to reduce exposure to suggestions and to retrieve verbatim memories before they decay.
- When reminding a witness of an event, present pictures/photos rather than use words to describe the event. Pictures help increase retrieval of verbatim memories.
- Do not question witnesses repeatedly over many sessions, or ask the same questions that cue related gist representations over and over. FTT predicts, for example, that when questions cue related gist representations, those representations are more likely to be falsely remembered in subsequent interviews for both children (Brainerd & Reyna, 1996) and adults (Payne, Elie, Blackwell, & Neuschatz, 1996).
- Do not give children negative feedback about their performance during an interview since it will prompt them to provide more information, even false information, in order to please the investigator.
KEY REFERENCES
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (1996). Mere memory testing creates false memories in children. Developmental Psychology, 32, 467–476.
Brainerd, C. J., & Reyna, V. F. (2005). The Science of False Memory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brainerd, C.J., Reyna, V. F., & Poole, D. A. (2000). Fuzzy-trace theory and false memory: Memory theory in the courtroom. In D. F. Bjorklund (Ed.), False memory creation in children and adults (pp. 93–127). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lloyd, F., & Reyna, V.F. (2001). A web exercise in evidence-based medicine using cognitive theory. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16, 94-99.
Payne, D. G., Elie, C. J., Blackwell, J. M., & Neuschatz, J. S. (1996). Memory illusions: Recalling, recognizing, and recollecting events that never occurred. Journal of Memory and Language, 35, 261–285.
Reyna, V. F. (2008). A theory of medical decision making and health: fuzzy trace theory. Medical Decision Making, 28, 850-865.
Reyna, V.F., & Adam, M.B. (2003). Fuzzy-trace theory, risk communication, and product labeling in sexually transmitted diseases. Risk Analysis, 23, 325–342.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2007). The importance of mathematics in health and human judgment: Numeracy, risk communication, and medical decision making. Learning and Individual Differences, 17, 147–159.
Reyna, V. F., & Brainerd, C. J. (2008). Numeracy, ratio bias, and denominator neglect in judgments of risk and probability. Learning and Individual Differences, 18, 89-107.
Reyna, V. F., & Farley, F. (2006). Risk and rationality in adolescent decision making. Implications for theory, practice, and public policy. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 7, 1-44.
Reyna, V.F., & Hamilton, A. J. (2001). The importance of memory in informed consent for surgical risk. Medical Decision Making, 21, 152-155.
Reyna, V. F., Mills, B., Estrada, S., & Brainerd, C. J. (2006). False memory in children: Data, theory, and legal implications. In M. Toglia & D. Read, D. F. Ross, & R. C. L.Lindsay (Eds.), The handbook of eyewitness psychology: Memory for events (pp. 473–510). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reyna, V. F., Nelson, W. L., Han, P. K., & Dieckmann, N. F. (2009). How numeracy influences risk comprehension and medical decision making. Psychological Bulletin, 135, 943-973.
External links
In order to get Dr. Valerie F. Reyna publications, access:Other links:
Cornell University – Department of Human Development:
- Medical Decision Making Resources
- Risky decision-making in adolescents
- FTT, teenagers and risky behavior
- FTT and court cases
- False memory in children and legal implications
- Gist iPhone Application
- Video about Gist iPhone Application
- Gist in Education
- Program that uses gist in Email
See also
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In psychology, a dual process theory provides an account of how a phenomenon can occur in two different ways, or as a result of two different processes. Often, the two processes consist of an implicit , unconscious process and an explicit , conscious process...
Confabulation
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Confabulation is the process in which a memory is remembered falsely. Confabulations are indicative of a complicated and intricate process that can be led astray at any given point during encoding, storage, or recall of a memory. Two distinct types of confabulation are often distinguished...
Framing (social sciences)
Framing (social sciences)
A frame in social theory consists of a schema of interpretation — that is, a collection of anecdotes and stereotypes—that individuals rely on to understand and respond to events. In simpler terms, people build a series of mental filters through biological and cultural influences. They use these...
Motivated forgetting
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Motivated forgetting is a debated concept referring to a psychological defence mechanism in which people forget unwanted memories, either consciously or unconsciously. There are times when memories are reminders of unpleasant experiences that make people angry, sad, anxious, ashamed or afraid...
Essence
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In philosophy, essence is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without...
Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology
Cognitive psychology is a subdiscipline of psychology exploring internal mental processes.It is the study of how people perceive, remember, think, speak, and solve problems.Cognitive psychology differs from previous psychological approaches in two key ways....
Social Psychology
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Developmental Psychology
Developmental psychology
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Emotion
Emotion
Emotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
Reason
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Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
Framing
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Risk
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Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss . The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists . Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks"...
Decision Making
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Decision making can be regarded as the mental processes resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. Every decision making process produces a final choice. The output can be an action or an opinion of choice.- Overview :Human performance in decision terms...
Risk perception
Risk perception
Risk perception is the subjective judgment that people make about the characteristics and severity of a risk. The phrase is most commonly used in reference to natural hazards and threats to the environment or health, such as nuclear power. Several theories have been proposed to explain why...
Cognitive development
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Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's point of...
Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology
Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a theory of mind and brain of the Berlin School; the operational principle of gestalt psychology is that the brain is holistic, parallel, and analog, with self-organizing tendencies...
Working Memory
Working memory
Working memory has been defined as the system which actively holds information in the mind to do verbal and nonverbal tasks such as reasoning and comprehension, and to make it available for further information processing...
Behavioral Economics
Consumer's Risk
Consumer's Risk
Consumer's risk or Consumer risk is a potential risk found in all consumer-oriented products, that a product not meeting quality standards will pass undetected though the manufacturer's quality control system and enter the consumer marketplace....