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沟通相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，直接比较在有和没有不确定性预报的情况下做出的与天气有关的决定。目标是确定在什么情况下不确定性估计是有利的，尽管从理性的角度来看，它们可能导致次优的决定。这些研究在复杂、现实的决策任务的背景下使用实际的预测和预测表达，测试不确定性预测的特定优势，如个性化决策和对预测的更多信任。该项目通过探索“寻求风险”选择背后的心理过程，预测误差和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来“简化”不确定性预测的趋势，做出了重要的理论贡献。许多具有重要经济和安全后果的决定(如是否保护农作物免受霜冻损害或是否疏散受洪水或飓风威胁的社区)都是基于内在不确定的预测。尽管现在可以评估这种不确定性，但这些信息很少到达最终用户手中。这在一定程度上是因为以前不知道非专业用户是否能很好地利用不确定的信息。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，从而具有实际意义。例如，它解决了一个很大程度上未经检验的问题，即可视化是否真的帮助人们理解不确定性。这里描述的实际贡献是重大的，特别是在天气警告的背景下，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.