Communicating uncertainty using words and numbers
Open accessAbstract
Life in an increasingly information-rich but highly uncertain world calls for an effective means of communicating uncertainty to a range of audiences. Senders prefer to convey uncertainty using verbal (e.g., likely) rather than numeric (e.g., 75% chance) probabilities, even in consequential domains, such as climate science. However, verbal probabilities can convey something other than uncertainty, and senders may exploit this. For instance, senders can maintain credibility after making erroneous predictions. While verbal probabilities afford ease of expression, they can be easily misunderstood, and the potential for miscommunication is not effectively mitigated by assigning (imprecise) numeric probabilities to words. When making consequential decisions, recipients prefer (precise) numeric probabilities.
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Social science research shows that, in human communication, expressing (un)certainty through natural language is often preferred and perceived as more intuitive than numerical expressions.
“Second, social science research shows that, in human communication, expressing (un)certainty through natural language is often preferred and perceived as more intuitive than numerical expressions [34, 60, 106, 112, 121].”
From "I'm Not Sure, But...": Examining the Impact of Large Language Models' Uncertainty Expression on User Reliance and Trust (2024) · cites this paper as [34]
Cites
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“[32,62,115], and their interpretations of terms are less influenced by changes in subject content [62].”
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“Coarsening the probability scale also adversely affects forecasting accuracy [43].”
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Kim, S. S. Y., Liao, Q. V., Vorvoreanu, M., Ballard, S., & Vaughan, J. W. (2024) · The 2024 ACM Conference on Fairness Accountability and Transparency · doi:10.1145/3630106.3658941 · Cited by 147 · see citing works
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- Authors
- Dhami, M. K., & Mandel, D. R.
- Affiliations
- Middlesex University London (GB)
- Defence Research and Development Canada (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Dhami, Mandeep K.
- Venue
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2022-06
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 514-526
- ISSN
- 1364-6613 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4223529721
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 9
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 3
- FWCI
- 1.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Trends in Cognitive Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Middlesex University Research Repository (Middlesex University Of London) (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Defence Research and Development Canada
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Keywords
- uncertainty communication, verbal probability, credibility, prediction error, miscommunication, climate science communication, decision making under uncertainty
- MeSH terms
- Communication, Humans, Probability, Uncertainty
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