Stopping Rule Selection Theory

在这个项目中，首席研究员将开发一个新的理论框架来理解决策中的停止规则。停止规则被认为是成功决策的关键组成部分。多年来，人们提出了几种互不相关的解释，以解释一些观察到的违反最佳停车规则的行为。目前的研究基于一种新的停止规则选择（SRS）理论，对这些违规行为提出了统一的解释。这一理论的创新之处在于，它基于这样一个假设：对于任何给定的决策问题，决策者都会从大量不同类型的决策策略和停止规则中提取信息。SRS理论假设存在一个用于停止规则的存储区域——即所谓的决策操作空间（DOS）——以及一个用于从DOS中选择停止规则的检索机制。SRS理论已经很好地适应了先前在相关文献中发表的一些具有挑战性的数据。模式分析是一种基于将观测数据模式的相对频率拟合到预测响应模式的新方法。就更广泛的影响而言，在研究中获得的知识应该对那些寻求发展或改进说明性决策辅助工具的人有用。决策辅助通常用于提高人类在复杂领域的表现，包括医学、航空、国防和商业。

In this project the Principal Investigator will develop a new theoretical framework for understanding stopping rules in decision making. The stopping rule is thought to be a crucial component of successful decision making. Over the years, several unconnected explanations have been proposed to account for some observed violations of optimal stopping rules. The current research proposes a unifying explanation for these violations based on a new stopping rule selection (SRS) theory. This theory is innovative in that it proceeds from the assumption that for any given decision problem, a decision maker draws from a large set of different kinds of decision strategies and stopping rules. The SRS theory hypothesizes that there is a storage area for stopping rules -- the so-called decision operative space (DOS) -- and a retrieval mechanism that is used to select stopping rules from the DOS. The SRS theory has shown good fit to some challenging data previously published in the relevant literature. The fits were achieved using pattern analysis, which is a novel approach based on fitting the relative frequency of observed data patterns to the predicted response patterns.In terms of broader impacts, the knowledge gained in the study should be useful to those who seek to develop or improve prescriptive decision aids. Decision aids are commonly employed to improve human performance in complex endeavors, including medicine, aviation, defense and business.