RUI: Judgment and Decision Making on the Internet

摘要 * 9986436 Michael H.互联网提供了一个人类经验的新领域。 对互联网在人口中的渗透率的估计表明，它的使用增长速度超过了以前的创新（电话，收音机和电视），这些创新在工业化国家已经几乎普及。 大多数美国人不久将使用互联网进行通信、商业交易和娱乐。互联网也为行为研究提供了一个令人兴奋的新媒介。 通过互联网研究，现在可以在几周内完成过去需要六个月或一年的工作。 由于万维网提供了一个极其异质的国际样本，因此有可能检查实验室研究对以前研究中很少研究的人口统计学群体的普遍性。 这使得人们可以调查实验室研究的结论是否只适用于在大学实验室测试的大学生，或者它们是否对在更自然的条件下测试的更大人群具有外部有效性。普通人在互联网上使用的认知过程与大学实验室里的学生使用的认知过程相同吗？这个问题有两个方面需要加以区分。第一个原因是测试对象不同，所以测试结果的任何差异都可能是由于受试群体之间的教育、年龄、财富或其他人口统计学差异。 第二个方面是互联网媒介本身可能会引发不同的思维、推理、判断和决策模式。 本研究旨在探讨这些问题，这是一个继续和扩大正在进行的互联网研究计划的建议。 除了有6,000名参与者参与的关于互联网上的判断和决策的实验之外，我还建议对行为科学家进行关于互联网的调查，并创建工具，使学生和互联网研究的新手更容易使他们的研究适应这种新媒体。通过实验室和网络研究的比较，可以验证两种方法的有效性。 通过比较不同人口群体的结果，可以检查这些特征与研究结果之间的联系。如果通过互联网进行的行为研究能够发挥其潜力，那么促进这种研究向互联网转移的过程可以加速科学事业的发展。

Abstract***9986436Michael H. BirnbaumThe Internet provides a new domain of human experience. Estimates ofthe growth rate of penetration of the Internet among the populationshows that its use is growing faster than previous innovations(telephones, radio, and television) that have already become nearlyuniversal in industrialized nations. The majority of the U.S.population will soon be using the Internet for communication, commercialtransactions, and entertainment. The Internet also provides an excitingnew medium for the conduct of behavioral research. By means of Internetresearch, it is now possible to accomplish in a few weeks what used torequire six months or a year. Because the World Wide Web makesavailable an extremely heterogeneous, international sample, it becomespossible to examine the generality of laboratory research to demographicgroups that have rarely been studied in previous research. This allowsone to investigate if conclusions from laboratory research are unique tocollege sophomores tested in university labs or if they have externalvalidity to a larger population tested under more naturalisticconditions. Are the cognitive processes used by the general population on theInternet the same as those used by students in university laboratories? There are two aspects to this question that need to be distinguished. The first is that the people tested are different, so any difference inresults may be due to differences in education, age, wealth, or otherdemographic differences among the groups tested. The second aspect isthat the Internet medium itself may itself induce different modes ofthought, reasoning, judgment, and decision-making. This researchexplore these questions.This is a proposal to continue and expand an on-going program ofresearch on the Internet. In addition to experiments on judgment anddecision-making on the Internet with 6,000 participants, I proposeto conduct surveys of behavioral scientists about the Internet and tocreate tools that will make it easier for students and newcomers toInternet research to adapt their studies to this new medium. Bycomparing lab and Web studies, the validity of both procedures can betested. By comparing the results for different demographic groups, itis possible to examine the linkage between such characteristics andresearch findings. If behavioral research conducted via the Internetlives up to its potential, then the process of facilitating the transferof such research to the Internet can result in acceleration of thescientific enterprise.***