COU 5: Analyzing a Model of Learning
Continue, as in COU 3 and COU 4, to consider the model of a citizen’s beliefs about (a) a terrorist group’s level of competence and (b) extent to which an attack by the group will be successful. Here again is the diagram we used to depict the citizen’s beliefs:
Now imagine that the group stages an attack. Suppose the citizen watches the news closely and so learns with certainty all the details about the attack – i.e. where and when it took place, what kind of weapons were used, whether or not the perpetrators were arrested or killed, etc. etc. From this, the citizens knows whether the attack was a failure, a moderate success, or a spectacular success. From this knowledge, of course, the citizen can update her beliefs about the competence of the terrorist group. In other words, she can learn about the group’s competence from the observing the extent of the attack’s success. Using the terminology of models of learning, it looks like this:
Prompt 1
Fill in the following table to describe the citizen’s posterior beliefs about the group’s competence in the event that the attack is a spectacular success…
| Group’s Competence | Probability |
|---|---|
| low | |
| medium | |
| high |
…and mark up this diagram…
…to show how you computed the values for the blank cells in the table.
Prompt 2
Fill in the following table to describe the citizen’s posterior beliefs about the group’s competence in the event that the attack is a moderate success…
| Group’s Competence | Probability |
|---|---|
| low | |
| medium | |
| high |
…and mark up this diagram…
…to show how you computed the values for the blank cells in the table.
Prompt 3
Fill in the following table to describe the citizen’s posterior beliefs about the group’s competence in the event that the attack is a failure…
| Group’s Competence | Probability |
|---|---|
| low | |
| medium | |
| high |
…and mark up this diagram…
…to show how you computed the values for the blank cells in the table.
Rubric
You can earn up to 2 points on each prompt…
- 2 points if you write the correct values for all three blank cells in the table and if you provide a diagram that shows how you computed those values.
- 1 point if you write a diagram that shows that you used the correct procedure to compute the values in the table, but one or more of those three values is missing or incorrect.
- 0 points otherwise.