Wrong Question

Incentivising sustainable living: the wrong answer to the right question?

The artful dodger: answering the wrong question the right way.

What happens when speakers try to "dodge" a question they would rather not answer by answering a different question? In 4 studies, we show that listeners can fail to detect dodges when speakers answer similar-but objectively incorrect-questions (the "artful dodge"), a detection failure that goes hand-in-hand with a failure to rate dodgers more negatively. We propose that dodges go undetected be...

Tenotomy and congenital nystagmus: a failure to answer the wrong question

Two companion papers used wavelet and dynamical systems analyses in an attempt to show that the new four-muscle tenotomy surgical procedure had little or no effect on either the ‘‘waveform structure’’ or the ‘‘underlying mechanism’’ of congenital nystagmus (CN). (Miura, Hertle, FitzGibbon, & Optican, 2003a; Miura, Hertle, FitzGibbon, & Optican, 2003b) We believe these papers (Parts I and II) as...

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied The Artful Dodger: Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way

The Right Answer to the Wrong Question: Identifying Superior Active Portfolio Management

The debate over the value of active portfolio management has often centered on whether the average active manager is capable of producing returns that exceed expectations. We argue that a more useful way to frame this issue is to focus on identifying those managers who are the most likely to generate superior risk-adjusted returns (i.e., alpha) in the future. Using a style-classified sample of ...