PSCH 352, Cognition and Memory, Summer 2005: Special Reading Worksheet for Klein,
G. (1999).  How people make decisions (pp. 8-30).  Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

This is due at the beginning of class.  Please type your answers.  Please keep your answers short,
i.e., no longer than a few sentences long.  As usual, this reading worksheet is worth 6 points.

Name:
Date:

1. How did Klein and his colleagues decide the best way to study decision making in firefighters? 
What ideas were retained?  Rejected?  Why?  (2 points)

2. What was the broader definition of a decision that Klein and his colleagues came up with? 
How does this relate to the way in which commanders made decisions?

3. Contrast the comparative and singular evaluation approaches to decision making.  How do
they relate to Simon’s ideas of optimizing and satisficing?

4. How do expert and novice firefighters differ in their decision making?  Consider the overpass
rescue and Christmas fire stories.

5. Summarize the key features of the output of Klein and colleagues’ research: the recognition-
primed decision model.