How well do ordinary Americans forecast the growth of COVID-19?

Across three experiments (N = 1565), we investigated how forecasts about the spread of COVID 19 are impacted by data trends, and whether patterns of misestimation predict adherence to social-distancing guidelines. We also investigated how mode of data presentation influences forecasting of future ca...

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Publicado en:Memory & Cognition Vol. 50; no. 7; pp. 1363 - 1381
Autores principales: Fansher, Madison, Adkins, Tyler J., Lewis, Richard L., Boduroglu, Aysecan, Lalwani, Poortata, Quirk, Madelyn, Shah, Priti, Jonides, John
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Oct2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
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      dt: Oct2022
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        10.3758/s13421-022-01288-0
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        atl: How well do ordinary Americans forecast the growth of COVID-19?
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        au:
          Fansher, Madison
          Adkins, Tyler J.
          Lewis, Richard L.
          Boduroglu, Aysecan
          Lalwani, Poortata
          Quirk, Madelyn
          Shah, Priti
          Jonides, John
        affil:
          Department of Psychology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
          Department of Linguistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
          Weinberg Institute for Cognitive Science, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
          Department of Psychology, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
      su:
        United States
        Confidence
        Forecasting
        Public opinion
        COVID-19
        Information display systems
        Social distancing
        Sensitivity & specificity (Statistics)
      sug:
        subj:
          Confidence
          Forecasting
          Public opinion
          United States
          COVID-19
          Information display systems
          Social distancing
          Sensitivity & specificity (Statistics)
      keyword:
        Data visualization
        Data visualization
      ab: Across three experiments (N = 1565), we investigated how forecasts about the spread of COVID 19 are impacted by data trends, and whether patterns of misestimation predict adherence to social-distancing guidelines. We also investigated how mode of data presentation influences forecasting of future cases by showing participants data on the number of COVID-19 cases from a 5-week period in either graphical, tabular, or text-only form. We consistently found that people shown tables produced more accurate forecasts compared to people shown line-graphs of the same data; yet people shown line-graphs were more confident in their estimates. These findings suggest that graphs engender false-confidence in the accuracy of forecasts, that people's forecasts of future cases have important implications for their attitudes concerning social distancing, and that tables may be better than graphs for informing the public about the trajectory of COVID-19.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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