Pauline Siew Mei Lai, Salinah Mohd Mudri, Karuthan Chinna, Sajaratulnisah Othman
The development and validation of the advance care planning questionnaire in Malaysia
BMC medical ethics
statistical inference ability use limited information draw conclusions likelihood event critical decisionmaking uncertainty ability make statistical inferences thought uniquely human skill requiring verbal instruction mathematical reasoning1 however basic inferences demonstrated preliterate prenumerate individuals234567 well nonhuman primates8 recently ability make statistical inferences extended members outside primate lineage birds910 true statistical inference requires subjects use relative rather absolute frequency previously experienced events show crows relate memorized reward probabilities infer rewardmaximizing decisions two crows trained associate multiple reward probabilities ranging 10 90 arbitrary stimuli later faced choice various stimulus combinations crows retrieved reward probabilities associated individual stimuli memory used gain maximum reward crows showed behavioral distance size effects judging reward values indicating crows represented probabilities abstract magnitudes controlling absolute reward frequency crows still made rewardmaximizing choices signature true statistical inference study provides compelling evidence decisionmaking relative reward frequency statistical inference task