Uncertainty Test

Instructions

This game is a test of how good your sense of uncertainty is. It's kind of like a trivia quiz except you don't actually have to know anything about anything.

You will be presented with statements, and it's your job to grade how likely you think it is that they are true. Pick 0 % if you're absolutely sure a statement is false, 100 % if you're absolutely sure it's true, and 50 % if you really have no idea at all. (The reason 50 % is the correct answer is that each statement exists in exactly two versions, one of which is true, and one of which is false.)

At any time, you can end the game and get your score. The more statements you answer, the more accurate your result will be. I recommend doing at the very least 20.

If you look up the answers to any of the statements, you're only cheating yourself. The point is for you to gauge how uncertain you are about things; it's not a competition of knowing the most things.

There are no trick statements. If a statement can be interpreted multiple ways, the most obvious interpretation should be correct. (For example, when the statement is about Schwarzenegger becoming "Governor", it means when he was elected Governor of California in 2003.)

Why?

Humans traditionally have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. We use these to perceive the world around us.

However, these are not our only senses. We have more. One important sense we don't talk much about is our sense of probability, or uncertainty. We use our sense of uncertainty when we think about the future, and more generally when we think about things we don't know for sure.

Republican or Chickens?

For example, if I asked you whether it would be more likely that a Republican wins the next US election, or that someone will donate to you 20 live chickens in the next month, you would be able to answer that question. Note that you don't actually known which of those things will happen, but you can still answer which you think is more likely.

This becomes more important when we need to plan for uncertainties in the future. If you think it's likely to rain, you might bring an umbrella. If you think rain is unlikely, you won't bother. Most of the time, we're fine with this rough sense of uncertainty.

Accuracy

However, sometimes we need to be more accurate than that. If you have forgotten your public transport pass at home, but you only need to ride the train one station, you might be inclined to ride without a ticket. Of course, you could be fined for this, which would cost you more than the ticket.

In this type of situation you would like a more accurate sense of uncertainty. You want to know, as exactly as possible, what the probability of being caught is.

People Are Different

Some people have naturally very strong senses of uncertainty, meaning when they think there's a 40 % chance of getting caught, it happens roughly 4 out of 10 times. Most people are not very good at this. Most people are overconfident: they might think there's only a 10 % chance of being caught, when in fact it was 40 %.

Your sense of uncertainty can generally be trained with games like this one. You have to learn to be honest with yourself about what you actually know, which is hard for most people. Some people never improve their sense of uncertainty, even after a lot of training – others improve it right away.

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