“Bouncing Back” from a Loss: No Statistical Artifact

In 1991 Nahinsky demonstrated that victories were more likely to follow losses than to follow victories in World Series competition, consistent with a “bouncing back” effect. Zentall stated the result was a statistical artifact of the analysis and presented an analysis he claimed supported that assertion. This article shows that his conclusions are based upon a misconception about the assumptions underlying Nahinsky's analysis as well as faulty assumptions underlying his own. Other aspects of analyzing processes of this sort were also considered. </jats:p

Parallel Interactive Processing as a Way to Understand Complex Information Processing: The Conjunction Fallacy and Other Examples

Abstract Parallel interactive processing (PIP) represents an approach in which specific context generates interactive relationships between general attributes. This article summarizes previous research that demonstrates how such relationships influence inference making in categorization. This is followed by evidence that the approach can be extended to other areas of cognition, including probability judgments. PIP was successful in fitting data that revealed the prevalence of the conjunction fallacy as well as other probability estimation data. PIP provided better fits overall than the signed summation model and the configural weighted average model. The quantum probability model provided good fits for the conjunction fallacy data but not for other probability judgments.</jats:p