Frequency Format Hypothesis

Re:Frequency Format Hypothesis by smodad on Sunday March 26, 2023 @03:28PM (#35318537)

Really? I've always been the opposite for some reason. I find it easier to visualize 20% of a pie chart, or of a crowd, or a length, etc. It's a lot harder for me to think about 1/5 of a crowd or 1/5 of a length.

It's tangentially related to this, but I've seen posts on social media over the years of how people visualize different kinds of information. For example, some people think of the months of the year in a vertical fashion, others horizontal.

I'm curious if this is something similar where some people find a certain way of thinking of probability easier than others.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Frequency Format Hypothesis by shadowofneptune on Sunday March 26, 2023 @03:33PM (#35318600)

Think of it this way: if I said that 0.001 or 0.1% of people had a certain congenital disease; that may seem like not many people at all. Say it as 1 in every 1000 people, or about 330,000 people in America, and it seems like a lot of people.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Frequency Format Hypothesis by smodad on Sunday March 26, 2023 @11:04PM (#35322400)

I agree with you on that. If it's less than 1% then it does make more sense to think of it that way.

[ Parent | on HN ]