Description-experience Gaps: Assessments in Other Choice Paradigms

Researchers have become increasingly interested in the descriptionexperience gap or the finding that people respond differently to the same quantitative information depending on whether it is described or experienced. Most studies on the gap have focused on binary choices between a safe option and a risky option and have compared decisions made from description alone versus experience alone. We review studies examining other decision-related phenomenaprobability learning, the sunk-cost effect, choices in a repeated-trials prisoner's dilemma, and base-rate neglectwith an experience-based approach that often includes conditions combining description and experience. In probability learning, the sunk-cost effect and a repeated-trials prisoner's dilemma, participants come closer to behaving optimally when description and experience are simultaneously available than when experience alone is available. In studies of base-rate neglect, participants respond similarly under conditions of description alone and experience alone. Studies with nonhuman animals strengthen the generality of our conclusions regarding the sunk-cost effect and suggest a potential cause of base-rate neglect: a prior experience of having been rewarded for matching like items. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.