Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, September/October 2014 | Page 34

My th s of A n a ly t i c s to what we’re most familiar with (even if another choice is better for us). The popularity of behavioral economics reflects a growing interest in tapping irrationality for business and government. There are still plenty of questions about how best to merge economics and psychology, but their immutable relationship beyond traditional utilitarian theory is without doubt. (Read more.) Takeaway: Even the tightest models are fallible due to the unpredictability of human behavior. often causing us to forget information and events. University of Illinois professor Brian Gonsalves conducted research in which he found subjects were able to recall information correctly only 54 percent of the time after being shown simple images and descriptions. Gonsalves explains that some people may remember the general context of an event, but may not encode specific details. (Read more.) Another study on the effectiveness of different advertising research methodologies found that less than 70 percent of respondents were able to X