Directories for:

Faculty

Staff

Bruce W. Carlson

Research Area:
Social Judgment & Behavioral Decision Making

Specialization:
Quantitative, Cognitive

Contact Information:

Office: 200C Porter Hall

Phone: (740) 593-1077

E-mail: carlsonb@ohio.edu

Research Interests:

My main research focus is on how people interpret, estimate, evaluate and communicate numerical quantities. Numerical reasoning and judgment are fundamental cognitive skills essential to everyday life. Failure to judge or accurately communicate numerical quantities may have disastrous consequences, whether a person is an intelligence analyst for the federal government assessing troop strength or a lawyer estimating financial damages sustained by a client. Numerical estimation is also vital to more mundane tasks, such as a dieter tracking daily calorie consumption. Currently, I am pursuing two lines of research. For the first, I am investigating the use of heuristics in the estimation of numerical quantitites. For the second, I am studying people's conceptions of randomness and how these conceptions influence their perceptions of the covariation of events.

Selected Publications:

Nash, J. G., Schumacher, G. M., & Carlson, B. W. (1993).

Writing from sources: A A structure-mapping model. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 159-170.

Carlson, B. W. (1993).

The accuracy of future forecasts and past judgments. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 54, 245-276.

Stout, C., Kotses, H., Carlson, B., & Creer, T. L. (1991).

Predicting asthma in individual patients. Journal of Asthma, 28, 41-47.

Carlson, B. W., Green, J., & Lynn, S. J. (1991).

Loglinear analysis: A primer for hypnosis researchers. Australian Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis, 19, 29-30.

Kelder, L. R., McNamara, J. R., Carlson, B. W., & Lynn, S. J. (1991).

Perceptions of physical punishment: The relation to childhood and adolescent experiences. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 6, 432-445.

Pinzone, H. A., Carlson, B. W., Kotses, H., & Creer, T. L. (1991).

Prediction of asthma episodes in children using peak expiratory flow rates, mediation compliance, and exercise data. Annals of Allergy, 67, 481-486.

Recent Grants:

• 1998-99 - "Air Pollution and Health Impact Assessment," Ohio Air Quality Development Authority, $164,853 (12/1/99-12/31/00), extension, K. Crist & B. Carlson (co-P.I.s).
• 1991-92 - Redesign of Psychology 121 (1804 Grant)

Some Recent or Upcoming Presentations:

Fingar, A. R., Crist, K. C., Carlson, B., & John K. (1999, November).

Air pollution and hospital admissions in Ohio, 1992-1997. Paper presented to the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. Chicago, IL.

Hallowell, B., & Carlson, B. W. (1999, September).

Dependent measures for quantifying visual responses in studies of cognitive processing using eye movements. Paper presented to the European Conference on Eye Movements. Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Carlson, B. W., Friel, S. A., & Beck, M. R. (1999, June).

Accessibility of verbal anchors affects numerical estimation. Poster session presented to the annual meeting of the American Psychological Society, Denver, CO.

Mann, D. D., & Carlson, B. W. (1998, November).

Perceived expertise, confidence, and accuracy in multiple-alternative judgments. Poster session presented to the annual meeting of the Judgment and Decision Making Society, Dallas, TX.

Beck, M. R., & Carlson, B. W. (1998, May).

Anchoring effects in numerical estimation with verbal anchors. Poster session presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society, Washington, DC.

Carlson, B. W., & Neff, S. A. (1998, May).

Detecting Change in Univariate Time Series. Poster session presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Psychological Society, Washington, DC.

Undergraduate:
Experimental Psychology; Experiment Design and Analysis

Graduate:
Intermediate Statistics; Intermediate Correlation and Regression; Multivariate Statistics II; Health Statistics