Quantifying Qualitative Probabilties: A Cross-Cultural Examination

Abstract

Language is a powerful tool and essential for human communication. Despite this criticality, linguistic terms often produce different percepts across differing individuals. Such variations can, and do lead to miscommunication and confusion. To assess the qualitative degree of such ambiguity, we look to quantify how different probability terms were characterized based upon an individual's personality and culture. Thus, we evaluated the probability ratings of 35 participants in the United States and 50 participant in Germany on sixty-four terms such as "always," "certain," "unusual" etc. Participants rated the likelihood of these descriptions on a 0-100 scale. Additionally, participants were asked to rate the strength of statements that included terms such as "safety," "guarantee," "health" etc. Results indicated that there is a wide range of these probability ratings between participants. Additionally, cultural differences were found: German participants score higher on low-probability ratings, whereas Americans score higher on high-probability ratings. The implications of these findings for communications between individuals and between humans and machines are discussed.

Publication Date

1-1-2017

Publication Title

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society

Volume

2017-October

Number of Pages

155-159

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1177/1541931213601521

Socpus ID

85042498499 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85042498499

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