RobinHanson comments on Dialectical Bootstrapping - Less Wrong

19 Post author: Johnicholas 13 March 2009 05:10PM

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Comment author: RobinHanson 13 March 2009 07:50:15PM 7 points [-]

In this study is the average also more accurate than the second guess?

Comment author: Unnamed 13 March 2009 08:21:16PM *  2 points [-]

They don't test that directly. From what they report, it looks like the average is more accurate than the second guess, but not statistically significantly so. The average is 7.6 better than the first guess (with mean errors of 123.2 vs. 130.8, looking at all participants' first guesses, and the averages of only those in the dialectical bootstrapping condition). The second guess (of those in the dialectical bootstrapping condition) is only 4.5 better than their first guess, which is not reliably different from zero (95% CI = -1.0 to +10.4).

Comment author: Johnicholas 13 March 2009 08:13:38PM 1 point [-]

In the reliability condition, the first and second estimates for each question were nearly identically accurate, with a mean within-participants difference of 0.4 (SD = 6.7; Mdn = 0.0; confidence interval, or CI = 0.0–+1.4; d = 0.06). In the dialectical-bootstrapping condition, the second estimates were somewhat, but not reliably, more accurate than their respective first estimates (within-participants difference: M = 4.5, SD = 19.6; Mdn = 3.0; CI = -1.0–+10.4; d = 0.23).