Communicating Weather Forecast Uncertainty and Improved Decision-Making Under Risk

研究小组调查了与天气预报不确定性的认知处理和交流有关的几个关键和以前未探索的问题。该项目采用了一种新颖的实验方法，直接比较了在有不确定性预测和没有不确定性预测的情况下做出的与天气有关的决策。目标是确定不确定性评估是有利的情况，尽管从理性的角度来看，它们可能导致次优的决策。这些研究在复杂、现实的决策任务背景下使用实际预测和预测表达，测试不确定性预测的具体优势，如个性化决策和增加对预测的信任。该项目通过探索“寻求风险”选择背后的心理过程、预测错误与信任丧失之间的关系，以及通过将不确定性预测误解为确定性数量而“简化”不确定性预测的倾向，做出了重要的理论贡献。许多具有重要经济和安全影响的决策（例如是否保护作物免受霜冻损害，或是否疏散受洪水或飓风威胁的社区）是基于本质上不确定的预测。虽然现在有可能评估这种不确定性，但最终用户得到的信息很少。这部分是由于以前不知道外行用户是否能很好地利用不确定性信息。因此，该项目通过探索沟通预测不确定性的方法来克服问题，具有实际贡献。例如，它解决了一个基本上未经检验的问题，即可视化是否真的能帮助人们理解不确定性。这里描述的实际贡献是重要的，特别是在天气预警的背景下，因为国家面临着气候变化的后果。

The research team investigates several critical and previously unexplored issues related to the cognitive processing and communication of weather forecast uncertainty. This project takes a novel experimental approach, directly comparing weather-related decisions made with and without uncertainty forecasts. The goal is to determine the circumstances under which uncertainty estimates are advantageous, despite the fact that they may result in decisions that are suboptimal from a rational perspective. These studies use actual forecasts and forecast expressions in the context of complex, realistic decision tasks, testing specific advantages of uncertainty forecasts, such as individualized decision making and increased trust in the forecast. The project makes important theoretical contributions by exploring the psychological processes that underlie "risk seeking" choices, the relationship between error in the forecast and loss of trust, and the tendency to "simplify" uncertainty forecasts by misinterpreting them as deterministic quantities. Many decisions with important economic and safety consequences (such as whether to protect crops against frost damage or whether to evacuate communities threatened by floods or hurricanes) are based on forecasts that are inherently uncertain. Although it is now possible to assess that uncertainty, little of this information reaches the end user. This is due in part to the fact that it was previously unknown whether lay users could make good use of uncertainty information. This project thereby has practical contributions by exploring methods for communicating forecast uncertainty to overcome problems. For instance, it tackles the largely untested question of whether visualization actually helps people to understand uncertainty. The practical contributions described here are significant especially in context of weather warnings, as the nation faces the consequences of climate change.