Jack comments on Bayes' Theorem Illustrated (My Way) - Less Wrong

126 Post author: komponisto 03 June 2010 04:40AM

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Comment author: TaeKahn 08 June 2010 05:39:55PM *  0 points [-]

While the overall probabilities for the game will never change, the contestant’s perception of the current state of the game will cause them to affect their win rate. To elaborate on what I was saying, imagine the following internal monologue of a contestant:

I’ve eliminated one goat. Two doors left. One is a goat, one is a car. No way to tell which is which, so I’ll just randomly pick one.

IMO, this is probably what most contestants believe when faced with the final choice. Obviously, there is a way to have a greater success rate, but this person is evaluating in a vacuum. If contestants were aware of the actual probabilities involved, I think we would see less “agonizing” moments as the contestants decide if they should switch or not. By randomly picking door A or B, irrespective of the entirety game, you’ve lost your marginal advantage and lowered your win rate. That being said, if they still “randomly” pick switch every their win rate will be the expected, actual probability.

Edit: The same behaviour can be seen in Deal or No Deal. If for some insane reason, they go all the way to the final two cases, the correct choice is to switch. I don’t know exactly how many cases you have to choose from, but the odds are greatly against you that you picked the 1k case. If the case is still on the board, the chick is holding it. Yet, people make the choice to switch based entirely on the fact that there are two cases and 1 has 1k and the other has 0.01. They think they have a 50/50 shot, so they make their odds essentially 50/50 by randomly choosing. In other words, they might as well as have flipped a coin to make the decision between the two cases.

Comment author: Jack 08 June 2010 08:00:57PM *  3 points [-]

If for some insane reason, they go all the way to the final two cases

The way the deals work going down to the final two cases can end up the best strategy. Basically they weight the deals to encourage higher ratings. As long as there is a big money case in play they won't offer the contestant the full average of the cases- presumably viewers like to watch people play for the big money so the show wants these contestants to keep going. If all the big money cases get used up the banker immediately offers the contestant way more than they are worth to get them off the stage and make way for a new contestant.

(This was my conclusion after watching until I thought I had figured it out. I could be reading this into a more complex or more random pattern.)