SOCIETY FOR JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING NEWSLETTER

VOL XVII Number 3 September, 1998

1998 ANNUAL MEETING

Information for the annual meeting is in this issue. The meeting will be at the Wyndhame Anatole Hotel, Dallas Texas, November 21-23, 1998. An initial program and preliminary poster abstracts are on pages 7-24 of this newsletter.

ACTION ITEMS

Please take care of the following items now, before they are forgotten!

          ELECTION BALLOT:  page 4.  Please cast your ballot
     among the excellent candidates for the Executive Board of 
     the society.  While you are at it, also respond to the 
     program items on p. 3.  The ballot is due to Colleen Moore 
     by November 10, 1998.

          MEETING REGISTRATION AND 1999 DUES:  page 29. 
     Use the form to preregister for the annual meeting and 
     make payment of your 1999 dues.  To avoid the late 
     registration fee, please get this form to Colleen Moore by 
     November 1, 1998.

          HOTEL RESERVATION: page 27.  This mailer can be
     used for the JDM meeting and for the Psychonomic Society 
     meeting.  The reservation is due to the hotel by October 
     15, 1998.

CONTENTS

          From the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 
          From the President. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 
          J/DM Election Ballot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 
          Dissertation Titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 
          1998 J/DM Meeting: Program Information. . . . . . . . 7 
          1998 J/DM Meeting: Preliminary Poster Abstracts . . .11 
          On-Line Services. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 
          Position Announcements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 
          1998 J/DM Meeting: Hotel Reservations . . . . . . . .27 
          1998 J/DM Meeting Registration and 1999 Dues. . . . .29 
          Notices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 
          Upcoming Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30

SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR THE NEXT J/DM NEWSLETTER: October 16, 1998


SOCIETY FOR JUDGMENT AND DECISION MAKING

1998 EXECUTIVE BOARD
Elke Weber, President, <weber.211@osu.edu>
Irwin P. Levin, President-Elect, <irwin-levin@uiowa.edu>
Hal R. Arkes, Past President, <arkes@oak.cats.ohiou.edu>
Jonathan Baron, 1997-1998, <baron@psych.upenn.edu>
George Loewenstein, 1997-1999, <gl20+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Gretchen Chapman, 1998-2000, <gbc@rci.rutgers.edu>
Colleen Moore, Secretary/Treasurer, <cfmoore@facstaff.wisc.edu>

EDITOR:
Shawn P. Curley
Department of Info. & Decision Sciences University of Minnesota
321 19th Avenue S.
Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 624-6546
Fax: (612) 626-1316
scurley@csom.umn.edu

DUES, ADDRESSES, & CORRECTIONS:
Colleen F. Moore/JDM
Psychology Department
University of Wisconsin
1202 W. Johnson St.
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 263-4868
cfmoore@facstaff.wisc.edu

FROM THE EDITOR

The J/DM Newsletter welcomes submissions from individuals and groups. However, we do not publish substantive papers. Book reviews will be published. If you are interested in reviewing books and related materials, please write to the editor.

There are few ground rules for submissions. The best way to send your contribution is via EMAIL or a 3.5" diskette. Send an IBM-compatible text file or word-processed document up to versions WordPerfect 8 or Word 97. If you must send hard-copy (e.g., if you are using special graphics or do not have computer access), please submit camera-ready copy. This means that the copy should be typed single-spaced on white 8 1/2 by 11 paper. If possible, use a carbon or film ribbon. Please mail flat do not fold.

Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available on a calendar year basis only. Requests for information concerning membership in the Society for Judgment and Decision Making should be sent to Colleen Moore.

Advertising Rates: Advertising can be submitted to the editor. Inclusion of the ad and the space given to the ad is at the editor's discretion. The current charge is $100 per page to cover production and mailing costs. Contact Shawn Curley for details. Alternatively, you can use--

Mailing Labels: Some readers may wish to send reprint lists or other material to people listed in the directory. The current charge is $125 for a set of labels. Contact Colleen Moore for details. A diskette of the database is available for one-time use. The charge is $50 for commercial use, $25 for nonprofit use

Address corrections: Please check your mailing label carefully. Because the J/DM Newsletter is usually sent by bulk mail, copies with incorrect addresses or which are otherwise undeliverable are neither forwarded nor returned. Therefore, we have no way of knowing if copies are delivered. Address changes or corrections should be sent to Colleen Moore.


FROM THE PRESIDENT

As our society has grown, it has become harder for the program committee each year to select the papers to be presented at our annual meeting from among the large number of excellent submissions. This year we received 55 paper submissions and 9 symposium proposals. Unfortunately, our current meeting time (less than 2 days) and format (at most two parallel sessions) allowed us only to accept 20 papers and 4 symposia. I know that this leaves many of you frustrated. It probably does not help much if I tell you that the members of the program committee became equally frustrated about having to turn down so many good proposals. However, I want you to know that the J/DM board will find some way to accommodate more presentations in time for the next meeting. We will discuss both short-term fixes (as of next year) and long-term changes (which require coordination with Psychonomics and advance hotel space reservations) to our meeting format at our next board meeting in Dallas. It will help us to have input from you, the members, before that meeting.

Please take a moment to evaluate potential meeting format changes listed below. This questionnaire is on the same page as your board votes on p. 4. Send both to our Secretary-Treasurer, Colleen Moore, at the address on p. 4.

Judging from the program, we should have a fine meeting in Dallas. I hope to see most of you there.

Elke Weber

Please rate each potential annual meeting format change on the following scale:

     1           2            3            4           5 
     |-----------|------------|------------|-----------|
Terrible Idea              Neutral                 Great Idea

(a) Short-Term Solutions

     Rating    Proposed Change
     _____     Three rather than two parallel sessions 
     _____     Four rather than two parallel sessions
     _____     Shorter papers (20 minutes rather than 30 minutes) 
     _____     An additional poster session Saturday night

(b) Long-Term Solutions

     Rating    Proposed Change
     _____     Add a day to the beginning of the meeting (more
               overlap with Psychonomics) 
     _____     Add a day to the end of the meeting

J/DM ELECTION BALLOT

All members are urged to vote in this election for a new President- Elect and a new Executive Board member. The person elected to the Executive Board will serve a three-year term, 1999-2001. The person elected President-Elect will serve as President-Elect (1999), as President (2000), and as Past President (2001). Current officers of the society are listed on page 2 of this newsletter.

President-Elect (vote for one)

     ______ Gretchen Chapman (Rutgers University) 
     ______ Gary McClelland (University of Colorado)
     ______ Thomas Wallsten (University of North Carolina)

Executive Board (vote for one)

     ______ Chip Heath (Duke University)
     ______ Joshua Klayman (University of Chicago) 
     ______ Rami Zwick (Hong Kong University of Science
            and Technology)

Please mail your completed ballots to:

     J/DM Election
     c/o Colleen F. Moore
     Psychology Department
     University of Wisconsin
     1202 W. Johnson Street
     Madison, WI 53706

Ballots must be received by November 10, 1998. Results will be announced at the annual meeting.


DISSERTATION TITLES

Judgment and Decision Making 1994-1998

In the last issue of the newsletter, I requested titles of doctoral dissertations in the JDM area from the last five years. Thank you for your response to this request! It is my intention to continue to request the titles on an ongoing basis and to publish them annually. This is a way for us to celebrate our educational efforts and the efforts of the newest members of our profession. If you have not done so in response to my call last issue, please send information for dissertations in which you have been involved, either as writer or as faculty advisor, over the last five years. My contact information is on p. 2 of the newsletter. Below are the titles that I have received a fitting testament to the continuing health of the JDM Society. Congratulations to all those involved in this important work!

Shawn Curley, Editor The list of JDM dissertations is available on the web at http://www.sjdm.org/dissertations.html.


1998 J/DM MEETING: PROGRAM INFORMATION

The 1998 Prelimary Annual Meeting Schedule is available on the web at http://www.sjdm.org/programs/98program.html.

1998 J/DM MEETING: PRELIMINARY POSTER ABSTRACTS

The 1998 Prelimary Annual Meeting Poster List is available on the web at http://www.sjdm.org/programs/98posters.html.

ON-LINE SERVICES

We welcome suggestions and comments about new features.

                 Alan Cooke <acooke@sjdm.org>
                     Alan Schwartz <alansz@sjdm.org>

ELECTRONIC MAILING LISTS
To subscribe, send a message of the form:

subscribe mailing-list YOUR FULL NAME

to the following address:

     listproc@mail.sjdm.org

where mailing-list is:

     jdm-society    for members of the society in general 
     jdm-grads  for graduate students  (Note:  This is a
          sublist of the entire mailing list.  Graduate 
          students receive messages to both lists.)

To send a message to all subscribers (including graduate students), send the message to:

     jdm-society@mail.sjdm.org

To send a message only to graduate students, send the message to:

     jdm-grads@mail.sjdm.org

To cancel your subscription, send a message to the same address as for subscriptions of the form:

unsubscribe mailing-list YOUR FULL NAME

REFERENCE ARCHIVE
The system allows users to store and retrieve book and chapter references related to the fields of judgment and decision making. The archive is located at:

     references@mail.sjdm.org

You can also access the reference archive through the Society's web site (address below). For more information send the message "help" to the e-mail address.

WORLD WIDE WEB SITE
The J/DM Society has a set of pages on the World-Wide Web, providing information about the Society and Society Membership, upcoming events, all our electronic services (including course syllabi, easy-to-use forms for subscribing to SJDM mailing lists, and help with the reference archive), links to related Web sites that may be of interest to members, copies of the JDM Newsletter (for society members), and the SJDM directory with links to members' home pages. The URL (uniform resource locator) for the Web page is:

     http://www.sjdm.org

ONLINE SOCIETY NEWSLETTERS
The SJDM newsletters are available on-line and through email. If you would like to receive text-only versions of the newsletter via e-mail, subscribe to the "jdm-newsletter" mailing list. Send mail to:

     listproc@mail.sjdm.org

The message should say:

subscribe jdm-newsletter YOUR FULL NAME

You must be a member of the society in good standing to subscribe to this mailing list.


POSITION ANNOUNCEMENTS

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

(1) PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT invites applications for a tenure-track position in Quantitative Psychology with a specialization in Mathematical Modelling. The exact area of research is open, but we are seeking candidates with strong substantive interests as well as quantitative sophistication. The primary criteria for appointment will be excellence in research and teaching. The position begins August 21, 1999 (Ph.D. required). Although it is likely that we will hire at the assistant professor level, applications from all outstanding individuals will be considered. Salary is dependent upon experience and qualifications. Interested persons should send a vita, a statement of research and teaching interests, at least three letters of recommendation, and preprints/reprints to: Brian H. Ross, Chair, Mathematical Modelling Search Committee, University of Illinois, Department of Psychology, 603 East Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820 (217-333-0632). Review of applications will begin October 15, 1998 and continue until the position is filled. Information concerning the Psychology Department's programs, research, facilities, and faculty can be obtained on the World Wide Web at <http://s.psych.uiuc.edu>. The University of Illinois is an Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity Employer. (2) PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT is searching for a faculty member in the area of individual differences in abilities, interests, and/or personality. Although it is unlikely that we will hire at other than the assistant professor level, applications from all outstanding individuals will be considered. This is a full-time, tenure-track position beginning August 21, 1999. Examples of relevant research areas are theory and nature of intelligence and the structure of interests and/or personality. Quantitative sophistication is a high priority. Examples of types of courses we would be interested in the candidate teaching are personality assessment, measurement theory, undergraduate statistics, and graduate courses in applied measurement in the person's specialty area. Women and members of ethnic minority groups are strongly encouraged to apply. Applicants should hold a Ph.D. at the time of appointment. Salary will depend on the qualifications and experience of the candidate. Interested persons should send vita, statement of research interests, and reprints, and arrange for at least three letters of recommendation to be sent to: Lawrence Hubert, Chair, Individual Differences Search Committee, University of Illinois, Department of Psychology, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820, (217) 333-0632. We may interview some candidates before the application deadline of October 15, 1998, but all applications received by that date will receive full consideration. The University of Illinois is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

RUTGERS UNIVERSITY, NEW BRUNSWICK
The Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick campus is accepting applications for tenure-track assistant professors. We are advertising for four positions but may have only two openings, in which case the best candidates will be chosen. Appointments will be considered for either September 1999 or September 2000. In all cases, the position will require graduate and undergraduate teaching as well as a strong research program. Candidates who show strong evidence of being able to develop an independent, externally-funded research program are desired.
Cognitive Science/Decision Science: Applicants with research interests in the cognitive processes and computational models underlying reasoning and decision making and the comparison of psychological theories to models of rationality or optimality. Particularly attractive are candidates with research applications to evolutionary psychology and/or health and medical decision making. This position will possibly be a joint appointment with the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science.
Send vitae, three letters of recommendation, and selected reprints to: The Cognitive Search Committee, c/o Charles Flaherty, Chairman, Department of Psychology, Rutgers University, 152 Frelinghuysen Road, Piscataway, NJ 08854-8020. <http://www.psychology.rutgers.edu/openings/tenure_position.html> Closing date 1/15/99 but applications will be considered as received.


1998 J/DM MEETING: HOTEL RESERVATIONS

Hotel reservation form
for SJDM annual meeting
Single: $115
Double: $115

Wyndham Anatole Hotel
Dallas, TX
For reservation information or changes:

     Phone: (214) 761-7500
     Fax: (214) 761-7808

Hotel reservation form mailer
for SJDM annual meeting


1998 J/DM MEETING REGISTRATION AND 1999 DUES

This form allows you to: (1) register for the 1998 annual meeting, (2) pay your 1999 dues, and (3) order two decision making journals for 1999 at a member discount rate. You may use the form for any one of these; but, doing all at once saves paperwork and should be more convenient for you.

        Name:
        Phone:   (     )
        Address:
        Fax:       (     )
        Email:

        ___ Address on label is correct
        ___ This is a new address
                                        Member    Student*  Non-Member
        Meeting registration fee      $ 90.00   $45.00    $100.00 
        ___ Check here if you wish to have a vegetarian meal for
        presidential banquet on Monday at noon.

        Late registration
        (After November 1)            $115.00   $57.00    $125.00
        1999 Dues
        (including Newsletter)        $ 25.00   $ 5.00
        Past dues (please check label
        for the last year for
        which you paid)               ________  ________

                            TOTAL     ________  ________  ________

Note: Registration includes coffee breaks, continental breakfasts (Sunday, Monday), and the Monday lunch. Dues are separate from registration fees. If you want to subscribe to either of the following journals for 1998, just check the appropriate space(s). Do NOT send your journal fees, you will be billed for the amount by the publishers. Please DO send your Society membership dues and meeting registration money.

I wish to subscribe to the following for 1999: [The journal will bill you later for the price of subscription at the special Society rate. The rates for 1998 are shown to give an indication of the approximate amounts.]

         ______   Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (6 
                  issues, 1998 prices:  $215 US & Canada, $250 elsewhere)
         ______   Journal of Behavioral Decision Making (4 issues, 
                  1998 price: $85)

*Students must have the endorsement of a faculty member:

Faculty signature:
Date:
Printed name:
Institution:

METHOD OF PAYMENT:
Check/Money Order (Please, no cash); Please make checks payable to: Society for Judgment and Decision Making.

                       ____ MasterCard     ____ VISA     ____ American Express
        Account Number:
        Signature 
        Expiration Date (month/year):

        If paying by credit card, please provide:
        Name on credit card: 
        Home Address: 

Mail this form to: Colleen F. Moore/JDM; Department of Psychology; University of Wisconsin; Madison, WI 53706.


NOTICES

SOFTWARE SURVEY
In the August, 1998 issue of ORMS TODAY, a publication of INFORMS, Dennis Buede again surveys 32 decision analysis software packages. The article is not a review, but provides a lot of good comparative information. Those who are interested but not members of INFORMS might contact Dennis, who is a member of the JDM Society, at: Dept of Systems Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22091, <dbuede@mason1.gmu.edu>.

ELECTRONIC JOURNAL
A new area of the Electronic Transactions on Artificial Intelligence (ETAI) has been formed of potential interest to JDM members, named Decision and Reasoning under Uncertainty (DRU). The new area covers research on reasoning and decision under uncertainty both on the methodological and on the application sides. Significant papers are invited from the whole spectrum of uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence research. A newsletter and news journal are also maintained, including information about papers and discussions on uncertainty reasoning. To see how ETAI operates and what its present state is, check the ETAI webpage: <http://www.ida.liu.se/ext/etai>.

UPCOMING MEETINGS

CALL FOR PAPERS
Judgemental Inputs to the Forecasting Process

A one day symposium will be held at University College London on Friday 13th November, 1998. This is part of the ESRC Seminar Series on Risk, Reasoning and Decision Making (grant held at City University). Send a one page abstract, along the theme of the symposium, to Clare Harries to reach her before 21st September. Include your name, affiliation and some means by which we can contact you. Contact information: Dr. Clare Harries, Department of Psychology, University College, London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, <clare.harries@ucl.ac.uk>, fax: 44 (0) 171 436 4276 (Marked FAO Clare Harries). The cost of the conference is still to be decided but will be a nominal fee to cover lunch and coffee expenses.

CALL FOR PAPERS
The First International Symposium on Imprecise Probabilities and Their Applications (ISIPTA '99) Universiteit Gent (Ghent, Belgium)
30 June - 2 July 1999
Symposium web site: <http://ensmain.rug.ac.be/~isipta99>

Contacts: <isipta99@ensmain.rug.ac.be> or <Michael.Smithson@anu.edu.au>

Imprecise probability is a generic term for the many mathematical models which measure chance or uncertainty without sharp numerical probabilities. These include models such as belief functions, Choquet capacities, comparative probability orderings, convex sets of probability measures, fuzzy measures, interval-valued probabilities, possibility measures, and upper and lower expectations or previsions. Such models are needed in inference problems where the relevant information is scarce, vague or conflicting, and in decision problems where preferences are incomplete.

Imprecise probability models are now being studied and applied by a large number of researchers, working in a great variety of fields: statistics, artificial intelligence, economics, psychology, engineering, medicine, management science, etc. There is too little communication between people working in different, but related, fields or in different countries, and this sometimes results in duplication of research or in inconsistent terminology. We believe, therefore, that there is a need for a regular symposium on imprecise probabilities.
Those wishing to submit papers in the area of human judgment or decision making with imprecise probabilities can send an abstract to Dr. Michael Smithson: < Michael.Smithson@anu.edu.au>; Fax: (61-2) 6249-0499. The successful authors will be invited to submit a final, possibly extended, version of their paper after the symposium for publication in a volume of symposium proceedings.

All the papers that are accepted for the symposium will be made available on the symposium web site well before the symposium. The web site also contains some introductory articles about imprecise probabilities, plus an extensive (and still growing) bibliography, and it will soon contain a collection of survey articles on special types of imprecise probability models. The Imprecise Probabilities Project also maintains a repository of abstracts of papers on imprecise probabilities, and an electronic mailing list. More information about these services can be found on the IPP web site: <http://ensmain.rug.ac.be/~ipp>.

Links to tourist information about Ghent, Flanders and Belgium can be found at the symposium web site.

Important dates:

     Submission deadline: 31 January 1999 
     Notification of acceptance: 31 March 1999 
     Deadline for revised papers: 30 April 1999 
     Deadline for early registration: 30 April 1999 
     Symposium: 30 June - 2 July 1999

If you have any questions about the symposium, please contact the ISIPTA '99 Secretariat at:
ISIPTA '99 Secretariat; p/a Gert de Cooman; Universiteit Gent; Onderzoeksgroep SYSTeMS; Technologiepark 9; 9052 Zwijnaarde; Belgium; +32-(0)9-264.56.53; Fax: +32-(0)9-264.58.40; <isipta99@ensmain.rug.ac.be>.


OTHER MEETINGS:

Economic Science Association: The regional meeting will be at the Westward Look Resort, Tucson AZ, October 15-18, 1998. For information: <http://www.econlab.arizona.edu/esa>.

INFORMS: Sheraton Seattle Hotel & Towers, Seattle, WA, October 25-28, 1998. For information: <http://www.informs.org/Conf/Seattle98>.

Society for Medical Decision Making: Hyatt Regency, Cambridge, MA, October 25-28, 1998. For information contact: Society for Medical Decision Making, The George Washington University, Office of CEPH, 2300 K Street NW, Washington DC, 20037 USA, (202) 994-8989, fax; (202) 994-1791, <smdm- office@smi.stanford.edu>, <http://www.gwu.edu/~smdm>.

Society for Computers in Psychology: Wyndham Anatole Hotel, Dallas, Texas, November 19, 1998. For information contact: Dr. Curt Burgess, Department of Psychology, 1419 Life Sciences Bldg, University of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0426 USA; (909) 787-2392; fax: (909) 787-3985, <curt@cassandra.ucr.edu>, <http://www.lafayette.edu/allanr/scip.html>.

The Psychonomic Society: Wyndham Anatole Hotel, Dallas, Texas, November 19-22, 1998. For information contact: Roger L. Mellgren, Secretary-Treasurer, Dept of Psychology, Box 19528, University of Texas, Arlington TX 76019-0528 USA, (817) 272- 2775, fax: (817) 272-2364, <mellgren@uta.edu>

Society for Judgment and Decision Making: Wyndham Anatole Hotel, Dallas, Texas, November 21-23, 1998. See this issue of the newsletter for program, registration, and hotel information.

Upcoming JDM Meetings

                    1999:      Los Angeles, November 20-22 
                    2000:     New Orleans