Fig 1.
Measuring perceptions of uncertainties.
Source: Kent, S. (1994). Sherman Kent and the Board of National Estimates: Collected Essays. History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency.
Fig 2.
Source: Posted to the media website ‘reddit’ by author ‘zonination’ 2015 https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/3hi7ul/.
Fig 3.
Inside the situation room, May 1, 2011.
President Obama, Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Clinton, and others watch in real time the raid on Osama bin Laden.
Fig 4.
An illustration of the perception-action loop as mediated by sematic referencing systems.
Here, the direct perception-action linkage is modified by semantic and qualitative mediations. The imperative of semantic assessment grows as a function of situational complexity and the insufficiently and ineffectively designed technology that mediates across the loop.
Fig 5.
The computer-based sliding scale.
Employed in all of the present sequence of experiments to elicit numerical estimates of probabilistic terms.
Table 1.
Quantitative distribution of qualitative probability labels.
(Ranked by Mean).
Table 2.
Quantitative distribution of qualitative probability labels.
(Ranked by Standard Deviation).
Fig 6.
Distribution of standard deviation values against the valence of the expressed word.
From this representation, it is clear that words that carry more positive degrees of valence are subject to the larger degree of variability and vice-versa. The interspersed pattern (e.g., ‘very improbable’) however, indicates that this is not simply a function of ordered coefficient of variation as a property of increasing variability with increasing magnitude, but represents a more nuanced differentiation that people’s understanding of number alone.
Fig 7.
Difference in variance between selected positive and negative valence terms.
Larger variation is seen in terms with high ratings of probability, compared to those with lower ratings.
Table 3.
Quantitative representation of Likert scale terms.
(Ranked by Mean).
Fig 8.
Likert term ratings (depicted here as the absolute distance from 0).
Standard Error bars are illustrated.
Table 4.
Significance-values for the paired-samples t-tests.
Significant differences between positive and negative terms counterparts were found for all term parings.
Fig 9.
Comparison of the assumed quantitative locations of the theoretical anchor term (top scale) versus the experimentally determined anchor term positions derived from empirical observation (bottom scale).
Negative valence terms showed a larger shift towards the center point, as compared with their matched positive valence terms.
Fig 10.
Theoretical comparison of two interpretations of Likert scale anchors.
Participant “A” is shown to represent even spacing of term meanings, while participant “B” interprets the terms towards the ends of the spectrum.