DRU: Cognition in natural environments: Using simulated scenarios in complex decision making experiments

DRU：自然环境中的认知：在复杂决策实验中使用模拟场景

• 批准号: 0527675
• 负责人: Glenn Harrison
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-04-01 至 2010-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0527675&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DRU; Cognition; natural; environments; Using

Our research effort has two overarching goals: the first epistemological and the second methodological. Our epistemological goal concerns naturalistic decision making (NDM) in the context of complex domains. Our application is an important economic problem where the evaluation of the social welfare consequences often leads to conflicting positions by experts and affected non-expert citizens. We argue that much of this conflict is created because experts and non-experts use different cognitive processes when evaluating and forming decisions. We propose a simulation technique designed to facilitate a convergence in these cognitive processes, and hypothesize that this will lead to a reduction in the degree of conflict. We have two methodological goals. First, we will use interactive, immersive virtual-reality (VR) simulation technologies to recreate, in a controlled environment, the rich array of cues and information relied upon by decision-makers in naturalistic domains. The application we have selected, forest management policies, is a good example of a decision environment with a rich set of information cues and interactions, and where the experience of experts is expected to matter in significant ways to the decisions made. Our second methodological goal is to blend the techniques of controlled economics experimentation with those of NDM. The power of experimentation lies in replicability and control, and by extending these capabilities through the power of VR simulations, this research will allow us to explore issues in decision making in ways heretofore not feasible. We will compare decisions made by participants using standard state-of-the-art questionnaires, where scenarios are described in words and with pictures, to those made using the interactive experience of the VR technology. We hypothesize that the differences in values and decisions between experts and non-experts is smaller with the immersive, interactive VR environment than with the standard word and picture descriptions. The research proposed will be valuable within economics, psychology, and computer science. Within economics, the research will contribute to the extension of standard expected utility theory to include the role of context and familiarity. Within the psychological sciences, this research presents a unique opportunity for theory development and testing in naturalistic domains. The advances in computer science will be in the development of algorithms for real-time, realistic rendering and the integration of these in a comprehensive mixed reality system.

我们的研究工作有两个总体目标：第一个认识论和第二个方法论。我们的认识论目标涉及复杂领域背景下的自然主义决策（NDM）。我们的应用是一个重要的经济问题，其中对社会福利后果的评估往往导致专家和受影响的非专家公民的立场冲突。我们认为，这种冲突之所以产生，是因为专家和非专家在评估和形成决策时使用不同的认知过程。我们提出了一种模拟技术，旨在促进这些认知过程的收敛，并假设这将导致冲突程度的减少。我们有两个方法论目标。首先，我们将使用交互式、沉浸式虚拟现实（VR）模拟技术，在受控环境中重建决策者在自然领域所依赖的丰富线索和信息。我们选择的应用程序，森林管理政策，是决策环境的一个很好的例子，它具有丰富的信息线索和相互作用，并且专家的经验对所做的决策有重要的影响。我们的第二个方法论目标是将控制经济学实验的技术与NDM的技术相结合。实验的力量在于可复制性和控制，通过VR模拟的力量扩展这些能力，这项研究将使我们能够以迄今为止不可行的方式探索决策中的问题。我们将比较参与者使用标准的最先进的问卷所做的决定，其中场景用文字和图片描述，与使用VR技术的交互式体验所做的决定。我们假设，与标准的文字和图片描述相比，在沉浸式交互式VR环境中，专家和非专家之间的价值观和决策差异要小得多。这项研究在经济学、心理学和计算机科学领域都很有价值。在经济学领域，该研究将有助于标准预期效用理论的扩展，以包括背景和熟悉度的作用。在心理科学中，这项研究为自然主义领域的理论发展和测试提供了一个独特的机会。计算机科学的进步将是实时、逼真渲染算法的发展，并将这些算法集成到一个全面的混合现实系统中。