Jim, Very much appreciated. Jon =============== Jon Mueller Professor of Psychology North Central College 30 N. Brainard St. Naperville, IL 60540 voice: (630)-637-5329 fax: (630)-637-5121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu ( http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/ )
>>> "Jim Clark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 3/22/2008 1:10 AM >>> Hi Wikipedia attributes this example of the availability heuristic to Stuart Sutherland. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic R does appear to work as stated in Wikipedia and again attributed to Sutherland. R in first position 2386 R in third position 4247 Other on-line sources attribute the 3:1 ratio to Tversky & Kahnemann http://www.hpcwire.com/dsstar/99/0202/100543.html Following up on that lead, brings us to Tversky & Kahnemann. See (if link works ok): http://books.google.ca/books?id=_H8gwj4a1MC&pg=PA166lpg=PA166dq=tversky+kahnemann+availability+letter+k&source=web&ots=YBaf5TQ4YO&sig=Xvv7kGMYPGlm-spOeWmd19rer5g&hl=en#PPA167,M1 There, the choice of consonants (K, L, N, R, V) is based on Mayzner & Tresselt's (1965) "extensive word count." All work for the KFR database (i.e., more frequent in position 3 than 1), except for K, although the counts for V are relatively closer than the other letters. An abstract of the Mayzner & Tresselt study indicates that they only considered about 20,000 words from 3 to 7 letters long. Limiting KFR to this length range did not modify the results for K (i.e., K was still more common in position 1). The same search revealed a 1998 JEP:LMC paper at http://www.mpib ( http://www.mpib/ )-berlin.mpg.de/en/institut/dok/full/hertwig/hrajojoep/hrajojoep.html or http://www.mpib ( http://www.mpib/ )-berlin.mpg.de/en/mitarbeiter/gigerenzer/pdfs/1998_are_judgments.pdf The authors concluded: "Tversky and Kahneman's (1973) findings on letter frequency judgment have become one of the stock-in-trade examples of a "bias" in the heuristics-and-biases literature. The results of three studies indicate that this chapter in the heuristics-and-biases literature needs to be rewritten." For a demo, it would seem that L, N, and R are better choices than K or V. From KFR, L 1490 in position 1 and 2649 in position 3 N 897 in position 1 and 3500 in position 3 R 2386 in position 1 and 4247 in position 3 K 547 in position 1 and 240 in position 3 V 686 in position 1 and 817 in position 3 Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> "Jim Clark" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 21-Mar-08 11:44:00 PM >>> Hi I counted a few word sets I have, including Kucera Francis, and got something like the 2:1 ratio David reports; that is, far more words beginning with k than with k in 3rd position. It would be good to know the source of Myers opposite results, although I think I have read this elsewhere and it is probably not unique to Myers. Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> "David Kreiner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 20-Mar-08 4:32:49 PM >>> A nice online source for these sorts of questions about words is the MRC Psycholinguistic Database at http://www.psy.uwa.edu.au/mrcdatabase/uwa_mrc.htm . I used the Simple Letter Match to locate words that started with k and words that had k as the third letter. Now, there are numerous options about which types of items to include or exclude.So the answer is going to depend on what you consider a word (and how it is coded in the database). I included all of the items that were coded as "standard" as opposed to obsolete, foreign, etc. I also excluded non-word morphemes such as prefixes and suffixes. Anyway, here are the results from my search: Words beginning with k = 297 Words with k as 3rd letter = 158 David Kreiner Professor of Psychology and Associate Dean of The Graduate School University of Central Missouri [EMAIL PROTECTED] >>> Rick Froman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 3/20/2008 12:28 PM >>> Thanks, Jon. I will look there. I hope that Myers cites a primary source for this statement but even better would be a program or a site that would allow for the demonstration of this difference (possibly some kind of onilne crossword dictionary). Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________ From: Jonathan Mueller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 11:56 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Availability Heuristic Activities? Rick, According to Myers (2005), there are two to three times as many "k's" in print in the third position than in the first. Myers, D. G. (2005). Social psychology. (8th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Jon =============== Jon Mueller Professor of Psychology North Central College 30 N. Brainard St. Naperville, IL 60540 voice: (630)-637-5329 fax: (630)-637-5121 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu ( http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/ )<http://jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/> >>> Rick Froman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 3/20/2008 11:20 AM >>> I know that there are supposed to be more with the letter in the third position than in the first but does anyone have a source of an actual count or estimate of English words of how often letters appear in the first or third position? Or possibly a program or website that would allow for making such an estimate? Thanks, Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences John Brown University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ________________________________ From: Christopher D. Green [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 20, 2008 10:58 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Availability Heuristic Activities? Julie Osland wrote: Hi Tipsters-- I'm going to be covering heuristics in a week, and I need demonstration/activity for the availability heuristic. In years past, I used a handout comparing causes of death (such as asthma, lightning strike, stroke, tornado, all accidents, etc) but have found it to no longer work (most students answer the items correctly). Any ideas of something new and different to try? How about the old standby: How many English words start with "R"? How many have "R" as the third letter? Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
