This post is based on the paper: “The role of cognitive abilities in decisions from experience: Age differences emerge as a function of choice set size,” by Renato Frey, Rui Mata, and Ralph Hertwig that appeared in Cognition 142 (2015) 60–80.
People seldom enjoy access to summarized information about risky options before making
a decision except for things like weather forecasts that explicitly state a probability. Instead, they may search for information and learn from the environment—thus making decisions from experience. Many consequential decisions—including health care choices, finances, and everyday risks (e.g., driving in bad weather; crossing a busy street)—are made without full knowledge of the possible outcomes and their probabilities so we must make decisions from experience. According to the authors, the mind’s most notable transformation across the life span is a substantial decline in processing speed, working memory and short-term memory capacity —all components potentially involved in search and learning processes.
