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Extrapolating Human Probability Judgment, Daniel N. Osherson, Edward E. Smith, Tracy S. Myers, Eldar Shafir

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

We advance a model of human probability judgment and apply it to the design of an extrapolation algorithm. Such an algorithm examines a person's judgment about the likelihood of various statements and is then able to predict the same person's judgments about new statements. The algorithm is tested against judgments produced by thirty undergraduates asked to assign probabilities to statements about mammals.