Diadem comments on Positive Bias: Look Into the Dark - Less Wrong

45 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 28 August 2007 03:55AM

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Comment author: Diadem 17 September 2014 08:02:24PM 0 points [-]

I wonder if this can not be partially explained by people wanting to answer quickly. The teacher says you can make as many guesses as you like, but we still instinctively feel like we do better if we do it faster.

Imagine the same test, but now with the last line reading: "You can make as many guesses as you like, but you get graded on how fast you get the right result". With the rule it is a lot more rational to not spend too much time on verification of your hypothesized rule. I have no idea what the best strategy is, I guess it depends on your priors about the rule-space, but it probably does not involve spending a lot of questions on falsification.

My guess is that many people approach the problem as if it is of the above variety, even though it isn't. So while positive bias no doubt plays a part, I think a desire to answer quickly also factors hugely.

This is testable. Give people a 10 dollar reward for giving the correct answer, and explicitly tell them that the number of guesses does not affect this reward. I hypothesize that the fraction of people getting the correct answer will go up significantly.

(I know this is a very old thread, but this sequence still features prominently on the site, so I have some hopes that people still read this occasionally :P)