{"pk":26132,"title":"‘Unlikely’ Outcomes Might Never Occur, But What About\n‘Unlikely (20% Chance)’ Outcomes?","subtitle":null,"abstract":"A commonly suggested solution to reduce misinterpretations\nof verbal probability expressions in risk communications is to\nuse a verbal-numerical (mixed format) approach, but it is not\nknown whether this increases understanding over and above a\npurely numerical format. Using the ‘which outcome’\nmethodology (Teigen & Filkuková, 2013), we examined the\neffect of using verbal, numerical and mixed communication\nformats, as well as investigating whether marking outcomes as\nsalient would alter the outcomes people perceived as ‘unlikely’\nor having a 20% chance of occurring. We observed no effect\nof saliency, but replicated previous findings, with general\npreference for values at the high end of a distribution (including\nmaximum/above maximum values) present in both verbal and\nmixed communication formats. This demonstrates the\nrelevance of these findings for real-world consequential risk\ncommunication. Whilst the estimates differed between the\nmixed and numerical formats, we found that the mixed format\nyielded the more accurate estimates.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"verbal probability expressions; numerical\nprobabilities; risk communication; geological hazards"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8wk139ct","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Sarah","middle_name":"","last_name":"Jenkins","name_suffix":"","institution":"University College London","department":""},{"first_name":"Adam","middle_name":"J. L.","last_name":"Harris","name_suffix":"","institution":"University College London","department":""},{"first_name":"R.M","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lark","name_suffix":"","institution":"British Geological Survey","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2016-01-01T10:00:00-08:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/26132/galley/15768/download/"}]}