Identifier

etd-04162009-183500

Degree

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Document Type

Thesis

Abstract

Recent research has questioned whether explicit thinking is necessary or even useful for complex decision making (Gladwell, 2005; Dijksterhuis & Nordgren, 2006; Newell, Wong, Cheung, & Rakow, in press). The present research approaches this issue by examining how different types of decision support facilitate/hinder performance in a diagnostic medical task. The results from 3 experiments indicate that providing an external memory aid improves performance in complex tasks. Additional support in the form of a coding procedure improved awareness of the magnitude of drug effects, but did not improve detection of negative side effects. The results suggest that while performance is improved, participants prescribed the correct treatments for the wrong reasons. Important differences in task representation (and resulting knowledge) due to the different forms of decision support are also discussed.

Date

2009

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Robert Mathews

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_theses.2710

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Psychology Commons

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