Paul,
The literature on the topic is extensive. You could start here:
@ARTICLE{Burns2004a,
author = {Burns, Bruce D.},
title = {Heuristics as beliefs and as behaviors: The adaptiveness
of the "hot
hand"},
journal = {Cognitive Psychology},
year = {2004},
volume = {48},
pages = {295--331},
number = {3},
month = may,
abstract = {Gigerenzer (2000) and Anderson (1990) analyzed
reasoning by asking:
what are the reasoner's goals? This emphasizes the adaptiveness of
behavior rather than whether a belief is normative. Belief in the
"hot hand" in basketball suggests that players experiencing streaks
should be given more shots, but this has been seen as a fallacy due
to Gilovich, Vallone, and Tversky (1985) failure to find dependencies
between players' shots. Based on their findings, I demonstrate by
Markov modeling and simulation that streaks are valid allocation
cues for deciding who to give shots to, because this behavior achieves
the team goal of scoring more. Empirically I show that this adaptive
heuristic is supported by the fallacious belief in dependency, more
so as skill level increases. I extend the theoretical analysis to
identify general conditions under which following streaks should
be beneficial. Overall, this approach illustrates the advantages
of analyzing reasoning in terms of adaptiveness.},
keywords = {Decision making, Streaks, Sequential information, Hot
hand, Adaptive
thinking},
url =
{http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6WCR-4B9K6YH-1/2/f5e0f00147184e3079b48466d43f1cd0
}
}
and work your way back and forward.
On Feb 12, 2008, at 9:59 AM, Paul Artes wrote:
> DeaRs,
>
> i'm looking for some references on a statement as follows:
> "Humans are good at spotting trends and patterns in data, but they
> are also
> good at spotting those patterns where none really exist". This is not
> verbatim but there must be some scholarly work on this. I can't
> remember
> where I came across it - perhaps I dreamed it up? Help, anyone?
>
> Best wishes
>
> Paul
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