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Research in decision making has identified the importance of prior knowledge and heuristics on decision making behaviour. These develop with experience in a fashion similar to how domain experts develop specialized knowledge structures and heuristic reasoning patterns. This research is extended to the domain of health and lay decision making in a series of studies characterizing conceptualizations of health and illness, information-seeking strategies, and the impact of medical information on lay decision making. Lay subjects included those with diabetes, heart disease, and no identified ongoing medical diagnosis. / Semi-structured interviews and think aloud methodology were employed. Interviews focused on understanding of health and illness, prior knowledge and beliefs, and decision making. In Study One, subjects were presented with health-related problem scenarios and instructed to think aloud as they reasoned through them to make decisions. In Study Two, subjects (lay and medical) were presented with a telecommunications device and scenarios of data to enter into the system. All data were audiorecorded, transcribed, and analyzed for factors and strategies related to information-seeking and decision making behaviours. / Lay understanding of health and illness was characterized as feeling well and functioning in everyday life. The knowledge used in making decisions was based on experience and socio-cultural tradition. Knowledge about disease was found to be decoupled from decisions to act related to illness. Additional information was sought using four criteria grounded in common experience: accessibility, familiarity, complexity, and credibility. These characteristics influenced interactions between lay people and domain experts, such as health care providers, and with technology designed by experts for lay users. / Both technical and lay people make decisions with incomplete information and uncertain outcomes. For lay people making decisions about health-related issues, this incomplete knowledge is filled in based on everyday life rather than medical and scientific facts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on February 26, 2008) Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri--Rolla, 2007. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed February 14, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. 44-45).

Honors Project--Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 66-69).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Oregon State University, 2009. / Printout. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 232-237). Also available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1961. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references: leaves [122]-125.

A fundamental task in reasoning is to form some internal representation of the premises that allows the relations between them to be determined. Whether this process is visual or auditory is the subject of a long-standing controversy. This controversy seems to have reached a stalemate. Another approach is to determine where in the brain reasoning is done. A way of doing this involves looking at differences in the processing and storage of visual and auditory information within the brain. Brooks used this approach in his experiments. His results suggested that a subject who receives spatial information by of the ear will, concurrent with reception, convert it into a visual representation. If, however, the individual receives a message in written form, be must use the visual system to both identify the words and, at the same time, represent the spatial relationships. Visually receive messages interfere with the generation of internal representations of spatial relations. Later experiments convinced Brooks that memories are stored in the system by which they enter the brain.

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No description available.