Effects of Descriptive Information on Mental Representations of Probability and Future Behavior in the Context of Personal Experience

ABSTRACT It is increasingly recognized that new information is filtered through the lens of prior experience. Research has shown descriptive probability information (“description”) often does not impact decisions for people who have previously observed a sample of outcomes related to the choice (“experience”). However, the effect of description on mental representations of risk probability in the presence of experience has rarely been examined. In two experiments, participants ( n = 263 college students and n = 1032 MTurk workers) played a game that exposed them to a predetermined rate of wins and losses, after which some participants received information about the game's expected rate of losses. Description strongly impacted participants' verbatim estimates of the risk of losing the game. However, description had little or no detectable impact on participants' gist risk estimates. Further analysis showed that lower gist risk estimates were associated with later decisions to continue playing the game. Verbatim risk estimates were correlated with later decisions, but no effect was observed while controlling for the effects of gist on decisions. This research additionally tested two approaches to strengthening the effect of description on gist, finding a small effect of one approach but not the other. Results suggest that descriptive information materials delivered after experience may be less likely to alter future decisions if the information does not alter gist representations of risk.