Consistency in interpretation of probabilistic phrases
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Although individuals have internally consistent interpretation of words for describing probabilities, these interpretations can vary substantially from one person to another.
“Many studies have shown that although individuals have internally consistent interpretation of words for describing probabilities (e.g., likely, probably), these interpretations can vary substantially from one person to another [17,22,74].”
From Uncertainty as a Form of Transparency: Measuring, Communicating, and Using Uncertainty (2021) · cites this paper as [17]
Cites
The magical number seven, plus or minus two: Some limits on our capacity for processing information.
Miller, G. A. (1956) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/h0043158 · Cited by 17,812 · see citing works
Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences
Kirk, R. (2013) · doi:10.4135/9781483384733 · Cited by 8,539 · see citing works
“How Probable is Probable? A Numerical Translation of Verbal Probability Expressions.”
Beyth‐Marom, R. (1982) · Journal of Forecasting · doi:10.1002/for.3980010305 · Cited by 527 · see citing works
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Consumer perceived risk: conceptualisations and models
Mitchell, V. (1999) · European Journal of Marketing · doi:10.1108/03090569910249229 · Cited by 1,582 · see citing works
Stewart, N., Chater, N., & Brown, G. D. A. (2006) · Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2005.10.003 · Cited by 737 · see citing works
Communicating uncertainty about facts, numbers and science
van der Bles, A. M., van der Linden, S., Freeman, A. L. J., Mitchell, J., Galvao, A. B., Zaval, L., & Spiegelhalter, D. J. (2019) · Royal Society Open Science · doi:10.1098/rsos.181870 · Cited by 456 · see citing works
Budescu, D. V., Broomell, S., & Por, H.-H. (2009) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02284.x · Cited by 402 · see citing works
Self-citationThe effects of communicating uncertainty on public trust in facts and numbers
van der Bles, A. M., van der Linden, S., Freeman, A. L. J., & Spiegelhalter, D. J. (2020) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1913678117 · Cited by 348 · see citing works
Measuring psychological uncertainty: Verbal versus numeric methods.
Windschitl, P. D., & Wells, G. L. (1996) · Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied · doi:10.1037/1076-898x.2.4.343 · Cited by 326 · see citing works
Uncertainty as a Form of Transparency: Measuring, Communicating, and Using Uncertainty
Bhatt, U., Antorán, J., Zhang, Y., Liao, Q. V., Sattigeri, P., Fogliato, R., Melançon, G., Krishnan, R., Stanley, J., Tickoo, O., et al. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society · doi:10.1145/3461702.3462571 · Cited by 225 · see citing works
Interpersonal comparison of subjective probabilities: Toward translating linguistic probabilities
Dhami, M. K., & Wallsten, T. S. (2005) · Memory & Cognition · doi:10.3758/bf03193213 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Self-citationThe intuitive use of contextual information in decisions made with verbal and numerical quantifiers
Liu, D., Juanchich, M., Sirota, M., & Orbell, S. (2020) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1177/1747021820903439 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Are numerical or verbal explanations of AI the key to appropriate user reliance and error detection?
Papenkordt, J., Ngonga Ngomo, A.-C., & Thommes, K. (2026) · Behaviour & Information Technology · doi:10.1080/0144929x.2025.2568928 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“However, other research proves that individuals often struggle to interpret verbal expressions of uncertainties or probabilities correctly and argue that numerical statements should be preferred (Budescu and Wallsten 1985; Wallsten, Budescu, and Zwick 1993; Wintle et al. 2019).”
- Authors
- Budescu, D. V., & Wallsten, T. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Haifa (IL)
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
- Corresponding author
- Budescu, David V
- ORCID
- Budescu, David V
- Venue
- Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 1985-12
- Volume
- 36
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 391-405
- ISSN
- 0749-5978 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1968499996
- Cited by
- 300
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 6 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 15 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 9 · 2012: 6
- FWCI
- 3.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Categorization, perception, and language
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Keywords
- probabilistic language, interindividual variability, within-person variability, rank order, decision analysis
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