Related papers: Why optional stopping can be a problem for Bayesia…
While the choice of prior is one of the most critical parts of the Bayesian inference workflow, recent Bayesian deep learning models have often fallen back on vague priors, such as standard Gaussians. In this review, we highlight the…
Bayesian optimization is a popular framework for efficiently tackling black-box search problems. As a rule, these algorithms operate by iteratively choosing what to evaluate next until some predefined budget has been exhausted. We…
We consider the problem of optimally stopping a Brownian bridge with an unknown pinning time so as to maximise the value of the process upon stopping. Adopting a Bayesian approach, we assume the stopper has a general continuous prior and is…
Experiments on decision making under uncertainty are known to display a classical pattern of risk aversion and risk seeking referred to as "fourfold pattern" (or "reflection effect") , but recent experiments varying the speed and order of…
When dealing with Bayesian inference the choice of the prior often remains a debatable question. Empirical Bayes methods offer a data-driven solution to this problem by estimating the prior itself from an ensemble of data. In the…
The Bayes factor, the data-based updating factor from prior to posterior odds, is a principled measure of relative evidence for two competing hypotheses. It is naturally suited to sequential data analysis in settings such as clinical trials…
This essay looks at decision-making with interval-valued probability measures. Existing decision methods have either supplemented expected utility methods with additional criteria of optimality, or have attempted to supplement the…
The problem of the priors is well known: it concerns the challenge of identifying norms that govern one's prior credences. I argue that a key to addressing this problem lies in considering what I call the problem of the posteriors -- the…
When performing Bayesian inference, we frequently need to work with conditional probability densities. For example, the posterior function is the conditional density of the parameters given the data. Some might worry that conditional…
This note is a discussion commenting on the paper by Ly et al. on "Harold Jeffreys's Default Bayes Factor Hypothesis Tests: Explanation, Extension, and Application in Psychology" and on the perceived shortcomings of the classical Bayesian…
A/B testing is one of the most successful applications of statistical theory in modern Internet age. One problem of Null Hypothesis Statistical Testing (NHST), the backbone of A/B testing methodology, is that experimenters are not allowed…
Despite their importance in supporting experimental conclusions, standard statistical tests are often inadequate for research areas, like the life sciences, where the typical sample size is small and the test assumptions difficult to…
Systems that are based on recursive Bayesian updates for classification limit the cost of evidence collection through certain stopping/termination criteria and accordingly enforce decision making. Conventionally, two termination criteria…
In a classical optimal stopping problem in continuous time, the agent can choose any stopping time without constraint. Dupuis and Wang (Optimal stopping with random intervention times, Advances in Applied Probability, 34, 141--157, 2002)…
The application of Bayesian inference for the purpose of model selection is very popular nowadays. In this framework, models are compared through their marginal likelihoods, or their quotients, called Bayes factors. However, marginal…
Hypothesis testing is an essential statistical method in psychology and the cognitive sciences. The problems of traditional null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) have been discussed widely, and among the proposed solutions to the…
Bayesian inference --- although becoming popular in physics and chemistry --- is hampered up to now by the vagueness of its notion of prior probability. Some of its supporters argue that this vagueness is the unavoidable consequence of the…
Bayesian methods are increasingly applied in these days in the theory and practice of statistics. Any Bayesian inference depends on a likelihood and a prior. Ideally one would like to elicit a prior from related sources of information or…
A key sticking point of Bayesian analysis is the choice of prior distribution, and there is a vast literature on potential defaults including uniform priors, Jeffreys' priors, reference priors, maximum entropy priors, and weakly informative…
Prior probabilities of clinical hypotheses are not systematically used for clinical trial design yet, due to a concern that poor priors may lead to poor decisions. To address this concern, a conservative approach to Bayesian trial design is…