Imperfect Perception And Stochastic Choice In Experiments

Imperfect Perception and Stochastic Choice in Experiments

The branch of psychology that studies how physical objects are perceived by subjects is known as psychophysics. A feature of the experimental design is that the experimenter presents objectively measurable objects that are imperfectly perceived by subjects. The responses are stochastic in that a subject might respond differently in otherwise identical situations. These stochastic choices can be compared to the objectively measurable properties. This Element offers a brief introduction to the topic, explains how psychophysics insights are already present in economics, and describes experimental techniques with the goal that they are useful in the design of economics experiments. Noise is a ubiquitous feature of experimental economics and there is a large strand of economics literature that carefully considers the noise. However, the authors view the psychophysics experimental techniques as uniquely suited to helping experimental economists uncover what is hiding in the noise.

Science Of Mistakes, The: Lecture Notes On Economic Data Engineering

That mistakes are made is clear. What is meant by that is not. Measuring whatever might be meant and scientifically studying it is therefore even more challenging.These lectures introduce an interdisciplinary science of mistakes to cut the Gordian knot. The key building blocks are model constructs drawn from the economic tradition, methods of measurement drawn from the psychometric tradition, and analytic methods drawn from economic theory.

Transportation Research Record