Psychologists Don't Know Math

stupefaction writes "The New York Times reports that an economist has exposed a mathematical fallacy at the heart of the experimental backing for the psychological theory of cognitive dissonance. The mistake is the same one that mathematicians both amateur and professional have made over the Monty Hall problem. From the article: "Like Monty Hall's choice of which door to open to reveal a goat, the monkey's choice of red over blue discloses information that changes the odds." The reporter John Tierney invites readers to comment on the goats-and-car paradox as well as on three other probabilistic brain-teasers."

Comments

Nice try!

[geekoid]

Like I'm going to click on a link with the word 'goat' in it.

Re:Nice try!

[Ilan Volow]

It's never a good sign when the words "reveal" and "Monty" are in the same sentence.

Re:Nice try!

[mrbluze]

on the goats-and-car paradox... In journals where this phenomenon is referred to frequently, the paradox is frequently abbreviated to goats-x

Re:Nice try!

[Tablizer]

Like I'm going to click on a link with the word 'goat' in it.

In the puzzle, I clicked on the car instead to avoid goat links. However, the car had a huge ugly rusted gaping hole in the back bumper, dripping oily sludge. It was horrible! I'll never look at cars the same way again. The humanity!

Re:Nice try!

[Achoi77]

.. the goats-and-car paradox
It's like a trained reflex, when you have a link that starts with "goat" and also contains the letters "c" and "x"..

I think this was a pretty interesting psychology experiment to get people to click on the link. Even just reading the phrase out loud brings people to a halt!

Re:Nice try!

[LrdDimwit]

I didn't really want to read the article anyway. It's for the best ...

Re:Nice try!

[Cosmic AC]

That's kind of a stretch.

They don't know math?

[hkgroove]

Don't tell the Scientologists... You'll only arm them!

Re:They don't know math?

[MrNaz]

Psychologists don't know math, nor do they know anything about psychology.

Personally, I have nothing but disdain for the psychological fraternity, I've never once seen a solution to a non-trivial problem other than "treat depression with Valium". Psychology and psychiatry in my books are just the business of carrying out chemical lobotomies and charging exorbitant fees for it.

That's my view anyway, and I'm aware that its a sweeping generalisation that is probably not universally true.

Re:They don't know math?

[Fifth Earth]

And I suppose that psychological counseling doesn't exist, then? You know, they do a lot more in those weekly therapy sessions than cram pills down your throat.

As for chemical lobotomies, that's such a gross misrepresentation of most psychoactive drugs that I'm tempted to call you out as a troll.

Re:They don't know math?

[MrNaz]

In my view, that's like saying "please don't let bad voodoo speak for voodoo in general".

In my experience (and I have a fair bit of exposure to and experience with the medical psychology) psychology is only good when the practitioners ignore their trade and just act like friends to their patients. That has nothing to do with the fact that they are psychologists, and more to do with the fact that they are good people. The world needs more good people, not psychologists.

Re:They don't know math?

[CastrTroy]

Makes me think of probably the most famous psychologist, Dr. Phil. He got hugely popular pretty much just telling people what they needed to hear. Nothing he says is profound or thought provoking. He basically just tells you the way it is. Most people aren't really to do that, so I applaud him for doing that. However, I don't think that he's really doing that much that anybody else couldn't do.

Re:They don't know math?

[The End Of Days]

You glossed over the part where most people don't know how to deal with problems that a psychologist is trained to handle. There's something to be said for the education.

After all, I have plenty of friends, and I'm in complete contact with my family, but they have no idea how to help me get through a bout of depression in anything approaching a concrete manner. Just being there isn't enough.

And I noticed further down where you market your experience with psychology. I'd just like to remind you, your personal evidence isn't any sort of justification for such sweeping statements.

I'd also like to remind you that your concept of "good people" seems a little skewed to me. I think you need to dwell a bit on how to remove so much of your personal bias from your opinions on general topics. You have no basis for positing that the world is shy of good people, because you only know a vanishingly small fraction of them.

Re:They don't know math?

[Z34107]

Wait... You don't have any psychological problems (other than replying to my post ^.^) You've never had sessions - you only run into this psychologist because she rents the space next to where you work. And you definitely haven't given her any money.

Do you mean to say, sir, that you are guilty of stealing psychology?!

Re:They don't know math?

[Eivind Eklund]

Your description of psychologists sounds very much like psychoanalysts to me - a kind of psychologist that, to me, rank possibly lower than a Scientologist (and slightly above a cockroach) when it comes to solving people's problems.

Fortunately, there's some other kinds of psychologists that actually do stuff that works. I'll discuss a trifle about them below. Before that, though:

Any psychologists have a couple of things going for them, even without the "working method of psychotherapy" part. Going to a psychologist will make a patient regularly think about their problems, and will make them feel that they are in a process with the problems, and this seems to lead to change. It also makes the person deal with the problems in contact with a stranger, which makes for a more neutral setting than with a friend or family member. With a friend or family member, the relation in other contexts will very often intrude.

So, any psychotherapy will usually have *some* effect, though it may be very restricted, and for some kinds of problems it does not work at all. There are some forms that have more effect, chief among them behavioral therapy (with most research having gone into the cognitive behavioral version of this, but with very little evidence the cognitive part add effectiveness.) This is mostly "common sense" put into a system. Some examples: If a person is depressed and sitting at home, make them go out and do stuff, starting with small enough stuff that they're able to do it ("Behavioral Activation"). If the person is afraid, have them go through the fear in small enough parts that they can handle it, exposing them to situations they are afraid of and let them learn that they can be safe there, waiting until the fear dies down. If they have OCD, expose them to the situation that makes their obsessive response come forth, and prevent/delay the response. ("Exposure and Response Prevention.)

The good thing is that the psychologist knows that this common sense works, and can put the weight of both experience and theory behind the words to make the person feel that it can work.

Most psychotherapy works better without drugs; drugs interfere with the learning process.

Eivind.

Re:They don't know math?

[rohan972]

Neurotics build castles in the air,
Psychotics live in them,
Psychologists collect the rent.

Re:They don't know math?

[hachete]

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - I refer to your post where you say you gleaned this information by discussing this with a counseller in the next office, not one whom you've actually worked. Not exactly a basis for the sweeping generalisations you make.

I went to a counseller for 4 years and it did me good. I agreed goals with my counsellor, not exactly something you'd do with a friend. Our relationship was very productive.

It was a wierd feeling, recounting my life to her, and in the process relearning the ability to feel good about myself, learn to deal with the negative aspects of my character. I have the greatest confidence in her. In some respects, she was a paid friend. In other respects she was a solid professional who would make me see things that no friend would ever could or would.

As to the drugs, for me they were a temporary stabiliser which allowed me time to fix myself.
In short, sir, I think you're full of shit.

Hmmm....

[Otter]

1) " Psychologists Don't Know Math" is a rather inflammatory, inaccurate, braindead headline, even by local standards.

2) The issue seems easy enough to settle empirically, given a few monkeys and a bag of M&Ms, besides the fact that it seems to have been empirically settled decades ago anyway.

3) This is, though, a good opportunity to ridicule "21" for completely botching the Monty Hall problem, along with pretty much everything else relating to math, gambling and Boston-area geography.

Re:Hmmm....

[Gat0r30y]

2) The issue seems easy enough to settle empirically, given a few monkeys and a bag of M&Ms, besides the fact that it seems to have been empirically settled decades ago anyway. One would think, but as it turns out, there are too many complexities. You see, you have to consider the socio-economic background of the monkeys, their upbringing, and their inherent biases to figure out if they like green, blue or red M&M's best. You see, the monkeys have an inherent bias toward green, but only if they have been captured from the wild (where presumably green would be comforting, the color of trees and whatnot). And of course there is the political bias associated with red and blue, so it depends on whether the monkey's political biases. These are especially hard to sort out as monkeys tend to just throw feces at the other side, at every opportunity, so you can easily separate the two groups, but rarely can you tell which is which. Its difficult to determine if they like to eat blue M&M's because they themselves are blue (or feel blue, as depressed monkeys have a significant bias toward the blue M&M's) or because they are red as it were, and feel like eating the blue ones to get back at the other side.

Re:Hmmm....

[noric]

1) " Psychologists Don't Know Math" is a rather inflammatory, inaccurate, braindead headline, even by local standards.

I agree, the title blows. It is rather ironic they try to imply that idiot psychologists were trumped by an economist when in fact this problem stumped mathematicians for a long time too.

Re:Hmmm....

[jorghis]

I watched 21 and I am pretty sure that they didnt botch the Monty Hall problem. It seemed weird that it would be in a senior level math course at a top notch engineering school, but the way they described it was mathematically correct.

Re:Hmmm....

[dbIII]

I find it even funnier that it is an economist that is saying it. Admittedly some economists are really mathematicians that have wandered in to try to bring some professionalism to a bunch of fortune tellers but in general economists have a bad reputation every time there is an attempt to assert itself as a science. Years ago when I had the misfortune to do an engineering economics subject I was astounded to find that the university level economics text we were using had one version of the compound interest formula for every variable - it was assumed that economics students could not do introductory algebra.

Re:Hmmm....

[msuarezalvarez]

No real mathematician would fail to grasp it with a few moments thought.

I wonder what does a true scotsman do?...

Re:Hmmm....

[Brandybuck]

but in general economists have a bad reputation every time there is an attempt to assert itself as a science.

True. But not all schools of economics try to make themselves a science. It's a difference in methodology. The Austrian School is a notable example, because they specifically reject scientific positivism. The Neoclassicists are obsessed with deriving mathematical formulas, and the Monetarists are obsessed with scientific predictability.

I sympathize with the Austrians, but realize that the Neoclassicists have a point. It's like population biology. You can derive population curves all you want, but you will still not be able to exactly predict the population of caribou. There are simply far too many variables to account for, plus a whole truckload of randomness. In addition, as Hayek noted, it is impossible to know many of these variables before hand.

But some of the formulas are very useful. The demand curve, for example. As long as you know that its a simplified representation of an ever-changing aggregate of a single price in a continuum of prices, then it is useful. But once you start treating it as an objective reality, then you start making horrible economic mistakes (Marx and Keynes spring to mind).

Austrians do tend to be, more than other economists, political ideologues. But their rejection of mathematics in favor of individual human action has led to two of the greatest insights in economics: marginal utility and time preference.

Re:Hmmm....

[wildsurf]

Here's an even better problem:

Suppose Monty Hall gives you a choice of two envelopes. Each envelope contains a check, and one of them is written for TWICE the amount of the other. So you pick an envelope.

Now, Monty gives you the chance to switch envelopes. (Assume Monty always gives you the chance to switch.) Logically, since your envelope contains X, the other envelope can contain either 0.5X or 2X, with 50% probability... So the expected value of switching envelopes is 50% (0.5X + 2X), or 1.25X. So, you should switch.

But here's the tricky part: Monty now gives you the chance to switch back! Since your new envelope contains Y, then by the same logic as above, the expected value of switching back is 1.25Y... So you should switch back. Right?

Clearly, something is wrong with this chain of thinking. Can you figure out what it is?

Re:Hmmm....

[wildsurf]

Yes, but you're missing the REAL puzzle, which is that even the FIRST switch (with the calculated 1.25x expected return) doesn't gain any information. By symmetry, the expected return on the initial switch MUST be exactly 1.0x, yet the simple math says 1.25x. Where does the math/logic go wrong?

Re:Hmmm....

[Refenestrator]

The amount of money in the envelope you choose and the probability of winning by switching are not independent. As it turns out, although the percentages gained or lost are different, the actual dollar amount is the same on average. This is true no matter what probability distribution Monty chooses.

For example, suppose he uniformly chooses one of $100, $200 and $400 for one envelope, and puts double that amount in another envelope. Suppose you choose an envelope and then switch. The envelope you initially choose has a 1/6 chance of being $100 (gain $100 by switching), a 1/3 chance of $200 (gain $50 on average by switching), 1/3 chance of $400 (gain $100 on average by switching), and a 1/6 chance of $800 (lose $400 by switching). Overall, you gain (1/6 * $100 + 1/3 * $50 + 1/3 * $100 - 1/6 * $400) = $0 on average by switching.

Re:Hmmm....

[fractoid]

So the expected value of switching envelopes is 50% (0.5X + 2X), or 1.25X. This is wrong. If one envelope contains X and the other contains 2X then the expected gain G from switching is:
G = 50% * (Gained if we were holding X) + 50% * (Gained if we were holding 2X)
= 0.5 * (2X - X) + 0.5 * (X - 2X)
= 0

So switching envelopes doesn't change the expected value.

Re:Hmmm....

[backwardMechanic]

I used to laugh at economists when they claimed to do science too. Then one of my friends at uni showed me the notes from their math course. As a physicist I like to think I can handle a few equations, but they do some serious math. After that, I kept quiet. Keep picking on the psychologists, it's safer.

Seems to make sense

[26199]

The psychologists were claiming that if you choose X over Y then you are more likely to choose Z over Y because your *choice* causes bias against Y. (This fits the observed data).

The new suggestion is that if you choose X over Y then you are more likely to choose Z over Y because the choice indicates prior bias against Y. The important part being that this holds even if the bias against Y is so small that it is hard to detect. The only thing required is that there is a fixed "preferred order" of the three.

At least, that's what I understand from the article. Given the field, I also understand that I am most probably wrong :)

Re:Seems to make sense

[a whoabot]

If anyone wants some interesting stuff to read about irrational choices that humans have near-pathologies in that they constantly make them across the board, read some Tversky and Kahneman, or Robyn Dawes. Here's an example about a Tversky and Kahneman experiment characterised by Dawes in Rational Choice in an Uncertain World:

"...Tversky and Kahneman offered each subject a bet. They would roll a fair die with four green (G) and two red (R) ones, and the subject made a choice between betting that the sequence RGRRR or the sequence GRGRRR would occur. This bet cost the subject nothing, and if the chosen sequence occurred the subject received $25. ... When subjects were asked to make a hypothetical choice for the $25 payoff, two-thirds choice the second sequence. When Kahneman and Tversky actually rolled the die and offered to pay the $25 in hard cash, two-thirds [the same proportion] chose the second."

So two-thirds of people will choose the option that is necessarily less likely, and can easily seen upon simple reflection to be less likely, because RGRRR occurs in GRGRRR, but GRGRRR also has an additional G, which has a 1/3 chance of not showing up there. The reason people choose this way is because they simple don't think straight: They know that G's are more likely than R's in the example, so they just choose the sequence with more G's. This is the compound probability fallacy as psychologists call it: People decide between options by comparing something like the averages of the possibilities of the individual events in the sequence([P1 + P2 ... + Pn]/n versus [P'1 + P'2 ... + P'n]/n), instead of comparing the actual probabilities of the sequences themselves ([P1 * P2 ... * Pn] versus [P'1 * P'2 ... * P'n]). This fallacy occurs constantly in people.

The same work I quoted has a nice bit about Bertrand Russell and how he wrote in his journal how his doctor gave him advice on another sort irrational-reasoning pathology people have: That of confusing inverse probabilities: "But [my doctor] didn't say what proportion of the total population are insane and drunken respectively, so that his argument is formally worthless." Dawes writes after this account: "As head of a department with a clinical psychology program, one of my goals was to help students learn to think like Russell."

Anyway, to note, Robin Dawes, psychologist: Probably knows math, then again he has a "Doctorate in Mathematical Psychology" as it's called.

Re:Seems to make sense

[VShael]

Not quite.

The psychologists were claiming that if you choose X over Y then you are more likely to choose Z over Y because your *choice* causes bias against Y. (This fits the observed data).

The new suggestion is that if you choose X over Y then you are more likely to choose Z over Y because that's just the statistics. This ALSO fits the observed data. But it's a simpler hypothesis, because the effect falls naturally out of the equations.

The Monkey picking the M&M's could choose the 3 in these ways
X Y Z
X Z Y
Y X Z
Y Z X
Z X Y
Z Y X

If the monkey chooses X over Y, then he could have chosen
X Y Z
X Z Y
Z X Y
Of those 3, you can clearly see that TWO of the THREE options, show a natural preference for Z over Y

Thus, the monkey is twice as likely to pick Z instead of Y.

This experiment does not support the Cognizant Dissonance theory.

To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math either

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Marilyn vos Savant explained the problem in Parade magazine, and a whole bunch of math professors wrote in to tell her that she was wrong... turns out it's kind of a bad idea to play "gotcha" with someone who has an IQ of 228.

We're being played

[Naughty Bob]

According to this site, Dr. Chen is being quite devious, seemingly in order to discredit a colleague.

In truth, the 1956 experiment may have had flaws (though Chen's paper doesn't prove this), but many subsequent ones have upheld the original findings, and are not subject to the alleged problems.

Re:We're being played

[yuna49]

Indeed. There's considerable evidence in favor of reductions in cognitive dissonance as a motivating psychological force from other types of studies and other disciplines. For instance, in my field of political science, the evidence is pretty overwhelming that citizens systematically misperceive candidates' positions to make them more similar to the citizens' own preferences. Voters often engage in "projection," believing that candidates' they prefer hold positions like the voters' own, even when those aren't the positions the candidates actually hold. The opposite process also occurs, where voters believe that candidates they dislike hold positions those voters dislike regardless of the candidates' true preferences. My own dissertation research on voters for the British Liberal Party in the 1960's and 1970's also confirmed these hypotheses.

Re:We're being played

[smallfries]

The problem with Blogs is that they are inevitabley the whining and yapping of dogs that don't know any better. The worthless opinion that you link to fails to explain the original experiment correctly before weighing in. While it doesn't add anything of value, I guess it lets you slur the reputation of Dr Chen which is what you apparently wanted to do.

Chen didn't try to prove that the experiment was definitely flawed - he showed that their own reasoning for why it was correct was not valid. That is there were no conclusions that could be derived from the experiment because their methodology was incorrect.

It's actually quite a nice point that he's made, although some other poster further up pointed out that there are much deeper flaws in the original experiment such as the complete lack of a decent control. If they'd rerun it with an animal that had monochrome vision and they still got a 2/3s result then they would have known that something was amiss.

As far as Chen's point goes, I suspect most, if not all animals with chromatic vision have a subtle ranking, because we have evolved to look for certain foods. This is suspected to be why humans can distinguish red/green combinations much better than others.

Re:We're being played

[yuna49]

An excellent question!

The relationship is obviously bi-directional. Determining the direction of causality is thus a difficult matter, and one that preoccupied folks in my discipline for quite some time. One method is to use an "instrumental variables" approach (see any advanced econometrics text for details), but perhaps a more accessible answer comes from my own research.

The Liberal Party was often seen as "between" the Conservative and Labour monoliths. I focused my attention on the preferences of voters who switched from one of the major parties to the Liberals between elections. (We have "panel" surveys where the same people are interviewed over time which helps to eliminate problems of misperceived past voting behavior.) Now it turns out that voters who switched to Liberals usually saw them as taking positions in opposition to the party from which the switchers came. Sometimes those views were, in fact, contrary to espoused Liberal positions. For instance, on the question of entry into the European Economic Community, the forerunner of today's EC, former Conservative voters who supported entry were more likely to switch to the Liberals, while former Labour voters who opposed entry made the same switch. This pattern recurred across a number of issues. The most parsimonious explanation is that voters who disagreed with their normal party for whatever reasons were more likely to defect to the Liberals, using them as a instrument to express displeasure regardless of the Liberals' true position. (In the case of the EC the Liberals were consistently pro-Market; the other parties tended to waver.) Voting Liberal was "easier" than moving all the way over the opposition major party. That meant that voters would tend to "project" their own views on the Liberals rather than being persuaded to support the Liberals because of agreement with that party's positions.

Most of the traditional literature on American voting behavior focuses on the role of "party identification" as a primary determinant of issue opinions rather than the other way round. Voters often seem not to tote up the various stances of parties and candidates as a method of determining which party to support. Many people have Democratic or Republican partisanships because of family and social factors. People "inherit" partisanships from their parents or adapt to conform to the social roles they adopt in adulthood. These prior partisan dispositions then color their interpretations of events and campaign issues.

Let me tell you a story about my grandmother. She emigrated from Ireland in the late 19th century and lived outside Boston for the rest of her life. Despite the fact that most Irish Catholics living around Boston voted Democrat in her lifetime, she was a stolid Republican for the entire time I knew her. Her Republicanism wasn't based on support for that party's positions; it originated in the 1928 Presidential election when the Catholic (and "Wet") Al Smith ran as the Democratic candidate. Smith lost that year because anti-Catholic "Drys" in the Southern states defected to the Republicans. My grandmother felt that the Democrats failed to work hard enough for Smith because of his Catholicism, and so she started voting Republican. She was unfazed by the rather substantial evidence that showed that the Democrats in this period supported policy positions much closer to her own views. By the way, after Kennedy was shot in 1963 she claimed she had voted for JFK in the 1960 election, but we all knew she'd voted for Nixon.

Dude

[bogie]

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:Dude

[u8i9o0]

What the hell are you talking about?

Yeah, no kidding.

The "Monty Hall problem" link in the summary informed me that I need Flash to understand the problem.
However, on that page they then offer "Need to know more? 50% off home delivery of The Times."

This confuses me terribly - if I now pick the home delivery choice, does the probability of learning about the Monty Hall problem go down 50%?

Damn - I should have picked the Flash answer from the start. :(

Ummm, I don't get it.

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I read the article, but I still don't see it.

door 1 - door 2 - door 3

I pick door 1, monty shows me what's behind door 3 - a goat. Door 1 might have a goat or a car, door 2 might have a goat or a car. Sounds like 50/50 to me - I don't see the benefit of changing my choice. I don't have any evidence of a goat or car behind 1 or 2. I picked 1, and without evidence, I don't see how changing my choice will make it better.

I don't think this has anything to do with cognitive dissonance at all. It's a question of probability. There were 3 - my odds of success were 1 out 3. Monty shows me that one of them is bad, so now my odds are 1 out of 2. In any particular Monty event, the odds will always be 50/50. If you ALWAYS pick door 1, and if Monty ALWAYS shows you door (not 1) is a goat, then your odds will always be 50/50, assuming the assignment of the car or goat to door 1 or 2 is always truly random and fair.

What am I missing?

RS

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[Jeremy Erwin]

It's quite simple.

Suppose the car is behind door number one.

If you pick door number one, then Monty has a choice of picking door number two, or three. If you switch, you lose.

If you pick door number two, then Monty must open door number three. If you switch, you win.

If you pick door number three, then Monty must open door number two. If you switch, you win.

Monty's choice of which door to open is constrained in two out of three choices. Pick the door he didn't open, and you'll win two out of three times.

But the problem assumes that Monty has to offer you that choice. On the game show, he didn't.

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[zulater]

Look at it this way.
Your original odds were 1/3. Monty has a 2/3 chance of having the right one. Monty's odds of having the right one is greater than your odds of having the right one so statistically you should switch.
Look at it by way of cards (in the article).
You need to pick the ace of hearts. Monty will then go through the deck and pick the ace of hearts or a random card. He will then show you the other 50 "goats" and ask if you want to trade. You have a 1/52 chance of picking it. Monty then has a 51/52 chance of picking it. Obviously, statistically speaking you should switch.

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[rmcd]

Monty's choice of a door to open is not random -- he has to pick a door that doesn't have a car. Say you pick door 1. Here are the three equally-likely possibilities:

If 1 has the car, he can pick either door. If you switch, you lose. Prob 1/3
If 2 has the car, Monty *has* to open 3. If you switch, you get the car, Prob 1/3
If 3 has the car, Monty *has* to open 2. If you switch, you get the car, Prob 1/3

Thus, there's a 2/3 chance of getting the car when you switch.

The other way to think about this is that Monty is revealing no information about *your* door when he opens one of the other two. Thus, the probability that your door has the car must be 1/3 both before and after Monty opens one of the other doors. Since there's only one closed door left, the car is behind it with prob = 2/3.

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[wurp]

No, changing your door choice changes your chances of winning from 1/3 to 2/3.

When you choose one door out of three, and one of those three was pre-chosen randomly to be "the winner", your chance of having picked the right door is 1/3. At least one of the other two doors is not the winner, so the fact that Monty can show you that one is not the winner doesn't change your chance of having chosen the winner.

HOWEVER, now your chance is the same (1/3), but the chance of either the door you chose or the remaining door closed door being the winner is 100%. Therefore the chance that the remaining door is the winner is 2/3. Switch doors to double your chances.

I have a BS in math (not statistically oriented, but I had the normal discrete math sequence) and I still had to think about this a lot before I switched answers from the wrong one to the right one :-)

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[Nos.]

Wikipedia has a much better explanation. Basically, if you stick with your original door, you have a 1/3 chance of winning. If you switch, you have a 2/3 chance of winning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_hall_problem#Solution

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[Sorcha Payne]

Try thinking of the monty hall problem with 1000 doors. Your initial pick of 1 door has 1/1000 of being correct. Monty then opens 998 of the other 999 doors to show that the prize is not there. Should you switch to the other remaining door when asked or not? (You should: the other door has probability 999/1000 of being the one with the prize) The thing you are missing in your analysis is the extra information gained when Monty opens the oher door.

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[forestgomp]

One thing that I think needs to be pointed out, however, is that for the odds to increase from 1/3 to 2/3, the player must know for sure that the host will *always* uncover a goat after the player's first choice irrespective of initial choice of goat vs. car. If the host's decision to uncover or not to uncover a goat is related to the player's initial choice, one can't say anything about the new odds.

Re:Ummm, I don't get it.

[Rich0]

Here is the easiest explanation to follow that I've heard. Extend the game to 1000 doors.

One door has a car, 990 have nothing.

You pick a door. Monty opens 998 of the other doors showing nothing. Which door would you pick? He essentially gave away the location of the car - you only had a 0.1% chance of winning, but he eliminated 998 incorrect choices. The chance of the car being behind the last remaining door is 99.9%. This way it actually is somewhat intuitive.

The 3-door game is just the same game but reduced in size.

Article title misleading?

[Prien715]

From an older article by the same author article:

Since she gave her [correct] answer [to the Monty Hall Problem], Ms. vos Savant estimates she has received 10,000 letters, the great majority disagreeing with her. The most vehement criticism has come from mathematicians and scientists, who have alternated between gloating at her ("You are the goat!") and lamenting the nation's innumeracy.

Since some math PhDs got it wrong too, isn't it a bit disingenuous to claim its the psychologists are the issue as the article title states?

Re:To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math eit

[wurp]

I read one of Marilyn Vos Savant's books, and in it she listed 9 as a prime...

She does seem to be brilliant, but everyone makes mistakes, and calling them on them will educate them if they were wrong, and educate you otherwise.

Don't worry.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I got my facts from the infinitely more trustworthy Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_hall_problem

Indeed

[sustik]

This reminds me the story my high school teacher told me:

Some researchers involved in pchycology (social behaviour etc.) came to high schools and drew up the friendship graph of the class. (Maybe school works differently where you live, we had a class of size 30-40 students attending exactly the same lectures.)

They assumed friendship to be mutual (if not, than it was not considered friendship). One clever cookie made the observation that almost always there is a group of 6 students who all friends to each other (a clique), or alternatively a group of 4 students, who do not like each other.

There were excited discussions among the researchers what social forces are the reason that one of the above situations always seemed to occur.

They were somewhat disillusioned when our math teacher explained them Ramsey's theorem. Since R(6, 4) is between 35 and 41, indeed one can expect either a frienship or hateship clique to appear with quite high probability... (This does not mean that properties of the frienship graph worth not examining, but one needs to know the math to do it properly.)

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[1729]

This one has been debated over and over, and is a classic example of lies, bloody lies and statistics. The fallacy lies in stating that before Monty opens the door and shows the goat, your chance of picking the car is 1/3. It is NOT, because as Monty will always pick a door with a goat behind it, your choices are always going to be two ... one with a goat, and one with a car, because the one Monty opens is taken out of the equation - in fact it was never IN the equation in the first place. You only ever had two options ... one with a goat and one with a car. Thus your chance of picking the door with the car are 1/2, they were 1/2 at the start, and they are STILL 1/2 after Monty opened his door. The odds do not change "in your favour", because they simply do not change AT ALL. Ergo, there is no advantage or disadvantage in changing doors. A careful mathematical analysis of the problem proves that you're wrong. There are many computer simulations of the problem that show that you're wrong. The only thing you have going for you is your intuition, and your intuition is wrong.

Pot, Kettle, Black

[ryu1232]

I started questioning this article before the end of the first sentence. An Economist, calling a Psychologist "wrong" about math?
One should remember what happens when you put 50 economists in a room - you get 100 opinions - one for each hand.
I recognize that the author of the article may be correct, I just couldn't help commenting on the first sentence.

Re:Pot, Kettle, Black

[squidfood]

you get 100 opinions - one for each hand.

But if they reveal their opinions, should you switch hands?

You know who can't do math?

[geekoid]

HR people.

If you are sick on a Friday or Monday, they assume you are 'taking a long weekend' even though there is a 2/5 chance someone will be sick on those work days. 40% of the time it would be Monday or Friday. More so for a 4 day work week.

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[1729]

You only ever had two options ... one with a goat and one with a car. Thus your chance of picking the door with the car are 1/2... This is analogous to observing that a lottery ticket can either be a winning ticket or a losing ticket, and then concluding that the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 2.

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[ThreeGigs]

You're missing something.

"It is NOT, because as Monty will always pick a door with a goat behind it, your choices are always going to be two"

Your argument *only* works if Monty opens a door *before* you pick. *And*, you get to pick *twice*. First time from three doors, second time from two doors.
You pick, from a choice of three, giving Monty a choice of two.
Your argument is based on the reverse, Monty being able to pick from three doors, and you only get two.

Do you see it now? You 'lock' a door, precluding Monty from choosing it.

Remember, since you have first pick, your chances of getting a goat are 2/3. Meaning you most likely picked a goat. Meaning when Monty reveals a goat, the remaining door is most likely a car.

Cognitive Dissonance

[jdbolick]

Amusingly, cognitive dissonance theory predicts that psychologists will rationalize their error and insist that it doesn't invalidate their conclusions.

Sadly, not as wrong as shown

[DynaSoar]

TFA has been adequately refuted, so I'll forego more on that. And despite the inflammatory nature of the title and claims here, it is unfortunately too correct too often.

I've been told by "superiors" to perform certain analyses because "everyone does", and they gave me references which supposedly showed these were proper. When I looked these up, the authors not only made no claims supporting their necessity, but both stated that the researcher should know enough about what they're doing to know what analyses to perform. I took my instructions to the statistics consultant for our department, and without showing him the references he made the same claims as both authors, contradicting the rationale given by those who gave me the instructions. I've seen many cases of psychologists performing statistical analyses based on their knowledge of how to use SPSS et al., rather than any fundamental grasp of the maths required by the design. Perhaps the most egregious error is their faith in fMRI analyses via statistical probability mapping, when the correction factor required by the 10^4 to 10^5 simultaneous T-tests makes any one result within the traditional collective p > .05 significance level to have an individual p value in the 10^-6 to 10^-9 range. That's a hell of a requirement for a single test, and very unlikely to actually exist. "Figure the odds" applies, and they don't seem to grasp that they don't grasp it.

On the other hand, some of us can apply such analyses as tensor calculus and Gabor transforms to dendritic electrical fields, showing where each of those are correct and where each fail, and can correctly apply nonlinear, N-dimensional statistical testing of time/frequency maps produced by continuous wavelet transform. But of those of us who can do these things, I know of none who learned of them, much less how, within the confines of a psychology department. (Well, except for the Gabor stuff, as used and taught by Karl Pribram, that being the only case I know of).

"Everything I Needed To Know I Learned At The Santa Fe Institute". No, not everything, but that'd make a hell of a book.

Re:Sadly, not as wrong as shown

[jelton]

On the other hand...

Are you sure you're not an economist?

Re:Sadly, not as wrong as shown

[drfireman]

There's no question that your story about a researcher with no clue what s/he was doing is repeated often in psychology, and probably in other fields as well.

However, your example from fMRI speaks to complete ignorance of the field, and I'd like to force you to defend it. Thousands of fMRI experiments have been carried out, and this standard for significance is often met. When you say "very unlikely to actually exist," I can't imagine what you're thinking, since this statement is so easily falsified (in fact, in many publicly available datasets). Although not everyone does power analysis well, it's no secret how large an effect can be detected with fMRI, as a function of a few dozen easily estimated variables. Detectable effects are in fact very common. Your example seems to assume Bonferroni correction, which is generally not optimal. But even if we assume that it is, many many experiments produce results that exceed these thresholds, even though they do mean you can't study subtle effects in small groups.

If you want to defend your view that fMRI users don't grasp that they don't grasp it (I'm sure I would be included in your blanket statement), then you are doing a profound disservice to science by not submitting your work to NeuroImage (or if you think you wouldn't get a fair review there, there are certainly other journals you should consider). I want to rephrase myself here, to be perfectly clear. If you really do know of a flaw in statistical practice that affects many thousands of studies and many millions (probably billions) of dollars of grant money, but that has escaped the notice of everyone in the field, and you haven't taken the time to submit your insight to a decent journal, then you are the worst kind of bad scientist.

Of course it's not secret that many researchers do the statistics poorly (even making allowances for what's practical), and it's inexcusable. It's often for the same reason you mentioned: people just do what they saw in some other article, without understanding it. And many such studies are underpowered, although that's a problematic issue in itself. I would also agree with the statement that the SPM approach to fMRI has some very worrisome weaknesses, although not the one you identified. However, I will say that if you want to make such sweeping claims about what is and isn't nonsense, in a field in which you have obviously only dabbled (if that), you should make the basis for your criticism clearer, as naive readers could easily get the wrong idea.

A Simple Explanation of the Monty Hall Problem

[ThinkFr33ly]

It's funny, this problem was just being discussed on the SGU forums. It happened to be given as a puzzle on a recent SGU podcast, before the NYT story was run.

Anyway, here is the simple explanation that I've found helps people realize their error in thinking:

The problem is a lot easier if you think about it in an "outcome" based fashion.

In other words, what are the three possible outcomes given that the person always switches their door?

[car] [goat] [goat]

            Choose door 1. Host reveals door 3. Switch to door 2. NO CAR.
            Choose door 2. Host reveals door 3. Switch to door 1. CAR.
            Choose door 3. Host reveals door 2. Switch to door 1. CAR.

What are the three results? NO CAR, CAR, and CAR. In other words, always switching your answer results in a 2/3 chance of getting a car.

If we repeat this process but we never switch our door, you get:

            Choose door 1. Host reveals door 3. No switch. CAR.
            Choose door 2. Host reveals door 3. No switch. NO CAR.
            Choose door 3. Host reveals door 2. No switch. NO CAR.

Now we only have a 1 in 3 chance of getting the car.

Re:A Simple Explanation of the Monty Hall Problem

[dcollins]

So you're saying that somehow I magically choose Door 1 twice as often as any other door? The door that just happens to have the car behind it? That's not right. Each of "my" initial choices must be of equal probability for this analysis to make any sense.

I dislike things that "seem".

[jd]

There are several problems with all of this. The original experiment does not appear to have any control group, it is unclear if the population sampled was genuinely random, the size of group tested seems to have been extremely small for a meaningful statistical study, and (perhaps most important of all), it assumes that mammalian vision is uniform greyscale AND that the candy was monochromatic.

(That last pair of points are important. Monkeys do not see all colours with equal clarity. Neither do humans, which is why monitors actually have more real-estate set aside for blue than for anything else. Complicating things, colours are usually the product of mixing. They are not "pure". We don't know what the monkeys saw, therefore cannot tell if their decision was influenced by their ability to even see the treats.)

Personally, I have developed a skepticism of such observational science. Too many possible explanations, yes, but more importatly too little experimentation to eliminate alternatives. If an explanation is put forward and then acted upon, especially in an area like psychology where those being acted upon are likely vulnerable groups, it's important to make sure the explanation is likely to be correct. Likely to be possible isn't good enough.

What would I suggest? Well, in the 1950s through to the last few years, options have been limited. These days, though, you can take fMRIs, MRIs and CAT scanners into the field. During the Chernobyl accident, it was fairly standard procedure for MRIs on trucks to be used to scan farm animals for contamination. See the brain in action as it makes the choices. See when the choice is made and which neural pathways were involved. Much better than speculating about what's going on. If you want more data, scientists decoded the optic fibre transmissions of cats ten years ago, or thereabouts. We can literally see if that plays a part in the decision.

You still end up doing statistics, sure, but with far more numbers that have far more meaning behind them and far less room for interpretation.

Re:I dislike things that "seem".

[jd]

Uhhhh.... you DO know that Britain invented the MRI? That the MRI was invented in 1973 but Chernobyl went up in 1986? As for the rest of your claims, they sound more like sour grapes (Britain has more high-ranking Universities than any country other than the United States). If you're more interested in trolling than querying, you're doing a good job of it. As for "proof", since you're probably not going to consider the fact that I was a research assistant at the University of Manchester for the inorganic biochemistry group involved in this research... Well, many scientific papers are pay-to-view and I'm not buying the whole Slashdot readership access to all the journals articles were published in, just to satisfy one anonymous coward over one point. If you're that interested, and care that much, look it up yourself. Try looking for papers on radioactive sheep in Cumbria.

Re:I dislike things that "seem".

[jd]

I wondered why the contrast seemed a bit off. Thanks.

Re:I dislike things that "seem".

[Ed Avis]

If monkeys were unable to reliably distinguish red, blue and green M&Ms, then they would have no systematic preference for one colour over another, and the experiment would not have found statistically significant evidence for such a preference (whatever its cause). However the experiments did find the monkeys have preferences about which colours they like.

You could equally well run the experiment with three types of treat - say peanuts, brazil nuts and pecan nuts - as long as individual monkeys have preferences among them and not all monkeys have the same preference. Whether these preferences exist you can check beforehand with a simpler experiment, before you waste valuable monkey-hours on running the psychology one.

Re:I dislike things that "seem".

[Anonymous Coward]

All these "experiments" always remind me of one thing and one thing only: Cargo Cult Science (http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html).

Also, from reading the comments, the article ought to be tagged "/.ers also don't know math"

Re:I dislike things that "seem".

[megaditto]

Presumably one could use NMR (MRI) to look for certain isotopes produced in a reactor explosion such as Cesium-137 or tritium. Getting the spectra out would be very easy for tritium, but an absolute bitch for cesium (1/2 vs 3 1/2). But I am still not sure why you'd do it that way rather than using a much cheaper scintillation detector (for example).

I agree it would be interesting to have some links, so I hope GP isn't just talking out of his ass.

Re:I dislike things that "seem".

[PRMan]

There is another problem.

Not to brag, but I have very acute taste buds. So much so, that when I was in high school, I would put M&Ms in my mouth with my eyes closed and be able to tell which color it was with nearly 100% accuracy.

The reason I could do this is that the dyes actually taste different.

• Dark Brown - Lots of red dye
• Tan - Anyone could taste these
• Orange - Red dye and yellow dye
• Yellow - Yellow dye only
• Green - Blue dye and yellow dye

Now that they have added pure red and pure blue (not to mention make-your-own-color), I can no longer perform this amazing feat. Still, the point is that most animals have a more advanced sense of smell and taste than humans and it is quite possible that they simply prefer the smell or taste of one dye over another. Or maybe they hate one color because it smells or tastes bad to them.

Re:To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math eit

[melikamp]

The problem can be easily misunderstood. If it is a known rule of the game that after we choose a door, a door with a goat is opened, then it always pays to change our choice: as TFA indicates, it raises our odds to 2/3.

If, however, opening a goat door is the host's choice, then we are entering a poker-like situation. For example, if the host only chooses to reveal a goat when we choose correctly, then changing our choice will cause us to loose every time! And in general, for each strategy that a host might employ, there is an optimal counter-strategy.

In the latter scenario, it may be our goal simply to preserve our initial odds. If so, it pays to toss a coin on the second choice. This way, quite regardless of the host's strategy, we will have our odds at 1/3 or above.

Put it into more physical/visual terms

[davidpfarrell]

My wife and step-son asked me to clarify this probability after getting home from watching "21".

I realized that the door analogy wasn't working as it didn't help them visualize 'possession of the odds'

Instead I explained it as follows:

We're going to play the game with 10 boxes - 9 boxes are empty and 1 box contains a prize.

My wife is asked to pick a box and she is handed the box that she chose.

Then my step-son is handed the other 9 boxes.

I then ask both my wife and step-son what each ones odds are of having the prize is. The agree on :

Wife : 1 in 10 (or 10%) chance of having the prize
Step-Son : 9 in 10 (or 90%) chance of having the prize

At this point I explain the physical-ness of my son 'holding the odds' - It is clear to both that he is in possession of 90% of the odds.

I ask my wife, at this moment, with her holding 1 box and he holding 9 boxes, if she would like to switch possession and trade her 1 box for his 9

She of course says 'heck yeah!'

They both have an 'ahah!' moment and I don't really have to go any further, but I did for completeness.

I make a statement that my step-sons 90% is evenly distributed across the boxes he posses - currently 9 of them.

Now I start opening my step-sons boxes, one at a time - Boxes guaranteed NOT to contain the prize

After opening one of the 9 boxes, leaving my step-son with 8 boxes, I point out that he is still in possession of 90% of the odds, but now those odds are distributed between the 8 remaining boxes.

Then you remove one more box, along with explanation, and they see the pattern - The odds stay the same, and are still in my step-son's possession, but are continuously distributed among fewer boxes.

Finally both my wife and step-son are each holding one box.

I bring back the fact that my step-son is still in possession of 90% of the odds, but that entire 90% is wrapped up in that one single box.

With a final closing - that they were patient enough to listen to, since they asked me to explain after all - I point out to my wife that, since she was willing to trade 1 box for 9 boxes earlier, she must certainly be willing (if not eager) to trade her 1 box for my step-son's 1 box.

They really connected the dots pretty fast once I placed the prize in a box and had them each holding the boxes - Putting a physical location to the odds.

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[thatseattleguy]

Re:The problem is a fallacy

Sorry, but your truth table is a fallacy. Though I doubt anything anyone says is going to convince you of that.

For everyone else: where he's going wrong is assuming that each of the 24 table entries is equally probable.

They're not. The table is assymetric.

Such a table can't have repeated entries in (for example) the column labeled "you" and still provide equi-probably outcomes for each.

In other words, where he has (going down the 'You' column):
He actually needs:
1 1 2 2 3 3 ....

If he really wants to assume all the probablities of each table entry is equi-probably.

My stat terms may be off but that's the flaw I see.

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[nlawalker]

That's equivalent to providing a table with all possible outcomes of a roll of two dice (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12) and saying that they are all equally likely just because each outcome has one entry in the table, except what you have done is the logical inverse. The example of the dice is combining multiple outcomes and pretending they are one - you are taking one possibility and branching it on a variable that has no effect on your outcome: the door that Monty picks if you picked the car to start with. If you pick the car to begin with, the number of the door that Monty picks has no effect on your outcome. To be more precise, the number of the door that Monty picks NEVER affects your outcome. If you want to keep the Monty column, you should replace the numbers with the word GOAT and then get rid of all of the duplicate entries, and the table will then represent the probabilities correctly.

Re:TFA Is Wrong

[1729]

If the car is in #3, the _four_ possibilities are:
Pick #1, Monty opens #2 (switch = win)
Pick #2, Monty opens #1 (switch = win)
Pick #3, Monty opens #1 (switch = lose)
Pick #3, Monty opens #2 (switch = lose)
50/50 No, the four possibilities here are not equally likely. If the initial pick is random, then the probability that case 1 occurs is 1/3, the probability of case 2 is 1/3, and the probability that EITHER case 3 or case 4 occurs is 1/3.

Re:Real World & Monty Hall Problem

[Chris Burke]

However as a sometime game show contestant I know you have to take into account one fact that is left out of the classical form of this problem.

WHEN YOU ARE ON A GAME SHOW, YOU ONLY GET ONE ATTEMPT!

Hehe, oh, and there's a bigger fact that is left out of the classical form of this problem, one that was revealed when someone asked Monty Hall himself what he thought of the eponymous probability problem.

The problem assumes that Hall always offers you the choice to switch, but this was not the case! He did not necessarily have to give you the choice (which kinda makes that part of the game show boring), and in fact said that he mostly only offered the choice to switch when the player had chosen the correct door, in order to lure them away from it!

So in the math problem version, switching is the best choice (by a factor of 2 even), while in the real-world version, staying was the better choice (by some unknown factor, but maybe a lot more than 2 depending on how evil Mr. Hall was).

Re:TFA Is Wrong

[Todd Knarr]

No, you're wrong.

Start with the initial case: you choose from 3 doors, 1 of which has a car and 2 of which have goats behind them. Now, suppose Monty just opens all the doors on the spot, revealing whether you won or not. What's the probability that you chose the car? 1/3rd. It has to be, only 1 door out of three had the car.

Next step, you make the same choice. Monty opens a door but doesn't give you the option of changing your selection. Now, what's the probability of your winning? You made the same choice you did in the previous scenario. Monty's opening of his door has no effect on the outcome or the probabilities. So your probability of winning the car has to still be 1/3rd.

Final step, you make your choice and Monty opens his door, but now he offers you the chance to change your selection. Before you decide, your situation is exactly the same as in the previous scenario. That means your probability of winning has to be the same, 1/3rd. But since Monty showed you one door with a goat behind it, so there's only one door left. Since the total probability has to be 1, the probability that that door is the one with the car behind it is 1 minus 1/3, or 2/3rds.

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Give it up. Conditional probability supports the conclusion that you are better off by switching:

Let's define some events:
TDC = Contestant chooses door with car
TD1 = Contestant chooses door with goat #1
TD2 = Contestant chooses door with goat #2

MG1 = Monty reveals goat #1
MG2 = Monty reveals goat #2

Here are the possible game outcomes, under the switch strategy:

Outcome A (TD1 MG2): Contestant chooses door with goat #1, Monty reveals goat #2, WIN
Outcome B (TD2 MG1): Contestant chooses door with goat #2, Monty reveals goat #1, WIN
Outcome C (TDC MG1): Contestant chooses door with car, Monty reveals goat #1, LOSE
Outcome D (TDC MG2): Contestant chooses door with car, Monty reveals goat #2, LOSE

Now, we will establish some conditional probabilities:
P(X|Y) means "the probability of X given that Y has already occurred"

P(MG2|TD1) = 1 (Monty MUST reveal goat #2 if contestant chooses goat #1; he cannot reveal the car or the door the contestant selected)
P(MG1|TD2) = 1 (Monty MUST reveal goat #1 if contestant chooses goat #2; he cannot reveal the car or the door the contestant selected)
P(MG1|TDC) = 1/2 (Monty reveals goat #1 or goat #2 with equal probability if the contestant selects the car)
P(MG2|TDC) = 1/2 (Monty reveals goat #1 or goat #2 with equal probability if the contestant selects the car)

Now, some simple probabilities for the initial choice:

P(TD1) = 1/3 (Contestant chooses any door with equal probability)
P(TD2) = 1/3 (Contestant chooses any door with equal probability)
P(TDC) = 1/3 (Contestant chooses any door with equal probability)

Now, using the law of conditional probability:

P(MG2|TD1)=P(TD1 MG2)/P(TD1) -> 1 = P(TD1 MG2)/(1/3) -> P(TD1 MG2) = 1/3
P(MG1|TD2)=P(TD2 MG1)/P(TD2) -> 1 = P(TD2 MG1)/(1/3) -> P(TD2 MG1) = 1/3
P(MG2|TDC)=P(TDC MG1)/P(TDC) -> 1/2 = P(TD2 MG1)/(1/3) -> P(TDC MG1) = 1/6
P(MG2|TDC)=P(TDC MG2)/P(TDC) -> 1/2 = P(TD2 MG1)/(1/3) -> P(TDC MG2) = 1/6

So, let's review the outcomes now that we know their probabilities:

Outcome A (TD1 MG2): Contestant chooses door with goat #1, Monty reveals goat #2, WIN (Probability 1/3)
Outcome B (TD2 MG1): Contestant chooses door with goat #2, Monty reveals goat #1, WIN (Probability 1/3)
Outcome C (TDC MG1): Contestant chooses door with car, Monty reveals goat #1, LOSE (Probability 1/6)
Outcome D (TDC MG2): Contestant chooses door with car, Monty reveals goat #2, LOSE (Probability 1/6)

Let's find the probabilities of winning and losing:

X Y means EITHER X or Y occurs.
P(X Y) = P(X)+P(Y) if X and Y are mutually exclusive (this is a probability theory axiom)
All four of our outcomes are mutually exclusive (they CANNOT occur at the same time)

P(WIN) = P(A B) = P(A)+P(B) = 1/3 + 1/3 = 2/3
P(LOSE) = P(C D) = P(C)+P(D) = 1/6 + 1/6 = 1/3

Under the "switch" strategy, you have a 2/3 chance of winning and a 1/3 chance of losing.

Everything I just wrote is basic probability and set theory, usually taught within the first 2-3 weeks of a college-level introductory probability course.

Inaccurate?

[jpfed]

As someone who majored in psychology, worked in two labs, and read countless psychology papers, I can tell you that 99% of psychologists avoid math when possible, and the other 10% try to use it but make obvious errors.

To the psychology researcher, it's more about getting the "story" right than actually quantifying anything.

Re:Inaccurate?

[djp928]

It was either a joke, or another data point.

Re:Inaccurate?

[jpfed]

The percentages were a joke. But I do mean in all seriousness to suggest that psychology researchers are often averse to math and tolerate math errors in papers. Psychology is often only quantitative insofar as there are certain numerical rituals associated with null hypothesis significance testing that researchers must use to be accepted by other researchers.

It's kind of depressing, so I try to make light of it when I can.

Re:Inaccurate?

[shermozle]

I had a somewhat heated discussion with someone who called herself a psychologist but hadn't studied statistics. To my thinking, statistics is central to psychology being called a science. Without statistics you're trading in conjecture and anecdote. When I said psychology without stats isn't science, it didn't go down too well.

Re:Inaccurate?

[19061969]

I haven't found this in my experience but then it might depend upon what kind of circles you move in. If it's the "lower end" of the scale in terms of ability, then yes I would agree but the same probably goes for any subject. Otherwise, I would disagree. I majored in psych and did a PhD in the topic. My external examiner for my viva was a Cambridge statistician and ex-math olympian (Alan Dix if you're curious) who focused his interests in human-computer interaction I think because of the challenges he got in the field that math or stats didn't provide.

I have found though that when it comes to "certain numerical rituals associated with null hypothesis significance testing", I have found far more problems in the hard sciences: biologists turning data into z-scores for comparison and then performing inferential analyses on those normalized data is one example.

Perhaps it might have been more accurate to say that "poor / less able psychology researchers are often averse to math and tolerate math errors in papers"

Re:The Monty Hall Problem

[Annoying]

Statistics are tricky and generally counter-intuitive. As my stats professor said, often the best mathematicians are among the worst statisticians.

Re:To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math eit

[STrinity]

Marilyn vos Savant explained the problem in Parade magazine, and a whole bunch of math professors wrote in to tell her that she was wrong

In that case the mathematicians were correct. Vos Savant left out a key criteria when explaining the problem -- that Monty Hall knew what was behind each door and always chose to open one containing the boobie prize. That gives the game a memory and gives the player an advantage in the second part. If Monty just chooses randomly, as Vos Savant's version implied, the mathematicians would be correct.

Re:To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math eit

[1729]

You obviously haven't read her absolutely idiotic book about Fermat's Last Theorem. She got you to pay for it. So who's the idiot? I found it at a library sale for 25 cents. The inadvertent humor was worth at least that much.

Re:To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math eit

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember a magazine called parade here in the UK when I was in my teens. To be honest I don't recall seeing any maths articles though, but to be honest I only looked at the pictures :D

Another way to look at it...

[dusqi]

Another way to look at the problem is to consider what you'd do if there were 99 doors, you picked one, then Monty opened 97 of the rest of the doors (leaving your door, and one other). Obviously in this case you'd switch.

The reason people don't switch may be related to regret theory. If you switch and lose, you'll feel really bad because it will feel like you just lost a car (even though you didn't technically have it to begin with). So people stick with their current choice.

Re:To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math eit

[Cajun Hell]

I read one of Marilyn Vos Savant's books, and in it she listed 9 as a prime...

But there's a more-than-50% chance that 9 is prime!

I test primeness by dividing the test-number by all integers, from 2 through the test-number's square root, looking for a zero remainder. So, first, I divided 9 by 2. I worked on this for a while, and ended up with a nonzero remainder. So far, 9 looks prime, and I've already tested half of the potential divisors! In fact, there's just one more potential divisor to try: the number 3. I'm almost done, and everything rides on this final calculation. There's a lot of uncertainty here.

What are the chances that 9 is just going to happen to be divisible by the very last potential divisor that I try? I'll grant you that the chances are non-zero; there really are some composite numbers out there. But the chances aren't one, either. For example, when I was testing 17 for primeness, the last potential divisor I tried was 4, and it didn't work. This last calculation could go either way.

So here we are, having tested half of the possible divisors, and so far 9 is looking prime and there's just one more divisor to test against. So, I ask you: do you want to bet 9's primeness/compositeness on this last calculation? I'll make it easier for you: I tell you right now, that 9 is just like 17, in that it is not divisible by 4. And then, I'll even give you an option: we can finish the calculation by dividing 9 by 3, or you can change your candidate divisor to 5, now that you know 4 doesn't work. Well.. what'll it be?

Let me be an asshat

[Daimanta]

See this link for the solution:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem#Solution

Look at the picture and be amazed.

Honestly, 100s of comments on /. trying to describe it and a simple picture was the thing that helped me get it.

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[robo_mojo]

It means that the chance of me picking the car is 8/24 or 1/3 in absolute terms, but in logical terms it is 12/24 ... To evaluate all the possible outcomes, you have to consider all the possible multiplicative steps That means you must MULTIPLY the probabilities of each step, not count them as equal to other outcomes.

Re:The problem is a fallacy

[nlawalker]

You're almost there.

Redraw the entire truth table with branches instead of separate rows for each possible outcome. Drawn this way, there are three starting points (CGG, GCG, GGC) and 24 outcomes.

For each starting point, write "1/3" above it. That is the probability of it occurring, since each is equally likely. Step down each node, and for each one, multiply the previous denominator by the total number of branches that could have been taken at the last node. So, for example, you'd have written 1/3 above CGG, and for each of the three branches coming from it (door 1, door 2, door 3), you'd have a 1/9 above it. You'll soon see that in the "Monty" column, when he has no choice about what door he could have picked, you'll have a 1/9 above the node, but when he could chose from two doors, there will be a 1/18 over each (this assumes that his choice of the two doors is random. If it isn't, it doesn't matter, because the probabilities above each choice will sum to 1/9, even if they aren't equal).

Proceed down each branch this way to the end, but don't branch on choosing "switch" or "don't switch." Since we want to see the results if we had picked either "switch" or "don't switch" in every possible situation, just write down the results as if you had picked "switch." We'll logically NOT the results later to simulate picking "don't switch".

When you finish the last column, you'll see that not every outcome has the same probability of occurring. Some of the outcomes will have probabilities of 1/9, and there will be outcomes that have probabilities of 1/18, because there was an extra decision branch involved in Monty picking the door.

Finally, sum up the probabilities of each outcome. "Win" will be 2/3, and "lose" will be 1/3. Obviously, if we logically NOT all the results to represent picking "don't switch" each time, the results invert, so "lose" has 2/3 probability and "win" has 1/3 probability.

Branching on each decision fixes the "problem" of a truth table like yours making it look like each outcome is equally probable.

Explanation glosses over the most important point!

[glwtta]

Do you get to keep the goat?

The possibilities are not equally likely.

[SEMW]

Car is behind 1
-I choose 1,
-Host chooses 2
-Stay = won
-Switch = lost
-Host chooses 3
-Stay = won
-Switch = lost
-Host CAN'T choose 1
-I choose 2
-Host chooses 3
-Stay = lost
-Switch = won
-Host CAN'T choose 1
-Host CAN'T choose 2
-I choose 3
-Host chooses 2
-Stay = lost
-Switch = won
-Host CAN'T choose 1
-Host CAN'T choose 3

Count: 4 wins, 4 loses True. But each of those four wins and losses are not equally likely.

You have two (equally probable) possibilities under case "I choose 1" -- "Host chooses 2" and "Host chooses 3". The probability of "I choose 1" is a third, so each of the two possibilities have probability a sixth.

But each of the other cases -- I choose 2 or 3 -- only have one possibility each. So since the probability of choosing each of the cases is a third, each of the possibilities have probability a third.

Count up the probabilities for each outcome, and you get the actual result.

And true...

[mutube]

My experience at a the University of Edinburgh ("a good uni") was that Psychologists really don't know math. I spent ~6 months being subjected to lectures on statistical theory about chi-squared and normal distribution that frankly didn't make any sense: "Why do we add +1 here?" "Because it works"

Seriously.

At the end of the course we were given a summary lecture that (shock horror, ladies fainting at the back) gave us a FORMULA that explained the whole point of what we'd been taught. I wasn't the only person who, at this point, suddenly realised wtf they had been blabbering on for the past 2 months... and more to the point, how much crap they'd been talking. Psychologists were taking formulae based on reason and using them to support conjecture. That's not inflammatory, it's fact.

base 9.1

[jschen]

Evidently, psychologists prefer base 9.1. It's not that they are bad at math, but that the world at large doesn't understand base 9.1. As for why psychologists prefer base 9.1, I haven't the faintest clue. I'm not a psychologist. I'm one of those bad at math organic chemists.

99 (base 9.1) + 10 (base 9.1) = [(9 * 9.1^1) + (9 * 9.1^0)] + [1 * 9.1^1] (base 10) = 100 (base 10)

Re:Martin Vs. Marilyn

[raddan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Hall_problem#History_of_the_problem

Re:To be fair, mathemeticians didn't know math eit

[fru1tcake]

Says who? The transcript of the original article and responses clearly shows that the game show host knew where the car was:

Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car, behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say #1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say #3, which has a goat. He says to you, "Do you want to pick door #2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice of doors?

Scientologists Paradox

[giafly]

You say you "rank Scientologists slightly above a cockroaches". Therefore by the logic of TFA, there are only three ways you can rank Scientologists, all your money, and cockroaches:

1. Scientologists, cockroaches, all your money
2. Scientologists, all your money, cockroaches
3. All your money, Scientologists, cockroaches

In two out of these three cases, you prefer Scientologists to all your money, so your best course is to join the church immediately.

There are many sub-disciplines of psychology

[why-is-it]

I had a somewhat heated discussion with someone who called herself a psychologist but hadn't studied statistics. To my thinking, statistics is central to psychology being called a science. Without statistics you're trading in conjecture and anecdote. When I said psychology without stats isn't science, it didn't go down too well.

When I took my degree (double major: CS and Psych) all psychology undergrads were required to take courses in statistics and scientific methodology. I find it hard to believe that someone with a degree in psychology from an accredited university never studied any stats.

That said, there are many sub-disciplines in psychology. I studied cognitive psychology, and there was a fair bit of maths involved. Someone who wanted to be a clinical psychologist would not need be devoted to statistics, just as I was not devoted to learning how to help clients via talk therapy and the medical model.

I went to a conference where the cognitive psychologists and clinical psychologists reviewed the same case study and made suggestions on how to help a client who was an alcoholic and suffered from bouts of severe depression. The clinicians believed that they needed to identify and resolve the root cause of the depression in order to end the alcohol dependency, whereas the cognitives believed that the client needed to stop drinking first, because alcohol is a depressant.

At the time, I could not help but recall the story of the Petit Prince, and the episode in which he met the drunkard.