{"schema_version":1,"research_id":"eoa_inverse_innovation_exp04_external_evaluation_20260802","source_assessment_id":"negative_space_design__behavioral_economics:SENTINEL_MATCHED:v0","cell_id":"negative_space_design__behavioral_economics","search_queries":["information cascade experiment public choices private signals sequential decisions original study","social influence undermines wisdom of crowds experiment estimates Lorenz 2011 PNAS","independent judgment before discussion crowds forecasting platform hide community prediction until forecast","Delphi method independent anonymous judgments avoid group influence official guidance","site:rand.org Delphi method anonymous questionnaires controlled feedback independent opinions","estimate talk estimate method independent estimates group judgment study","nominal group technique individuals silently generate ideas before discussion official","platform hide crowd forecast until user makes prediction independent forecast feature","site:help.loomio.com hide results until vote close poll prevent influence","site:support.microsoft.com Forms hide responses until submit prevent bias ranking","\"hide the results\" \"until\" voting prevent bias software","forecasting platform \"before seeing\" community prediction forecast","site:aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.87.5.847 information cascades laboratory Anderson Holt","site:w3.org/TR/WCAG22 status messages focus order predictable content accessibility","site:ecfr.gov 45 CFR 46 human subjects informed consent minimal risk research","site:bls.gov/ooh computer and information technology software developers median pay 2024","eCFR Title 45 Part 46 protection human subjects informed consent minimal risk official","Anderson Holt 1997 Information Cascades in the Laboratory DOI 10.1257/aer.87.5.847 abstract","PNAS social information improve estimation accuracy human groups Jayles 2017 PMC","Good Judgment Delphineo estimate talk estimate initial estimate rationale before seeing others","\"How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect\" pdf","arxiv social influence undermine wisdom crowd Lorenz Rauhut 2011","site:pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1008636108 Lorenz social influence"],"sources":[{"source_id":"S1","title":"Information Cascades in the Laboratory","publisher":"American Economic Review; copy hosted by University of California San Diego","url":"https://econweb.ucsd.edu/~jandreon/Econ264/papers/Holt%20Anderson%20AER%201997.pdf","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"1997-12","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Incentivized sequential choices can enter information cascades in which later actors ignore private signals after observing earlier decisions.","Cascade behavior occurred in 41 of 56 experimental periods where prior choices created the relevant signal imbalance.","Wrong early decisions can generate a reverse cascade despite later private evidence favoring the correct state."]},{"source_id":"S2","title":"How social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect","publisher":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences; copy hosted by Carnegie Mellon University Qatar","url":"https://web2.qatar.cmu.edu/~gdicaro/15382-Spring18/additional/social-influence-on-crowd-wisdom.pdf","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2011-05-31","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["A monetary-stakes experiment with 144 participants found that even mild exposure to others' estimates reduced opinion diversity without improving collective error.","Social exposure made the truth less central in the estimate distribution while increasing participants' confidence.","The experiment elicited an independent first estimate before providing aggregate or full social information, demonstrating technical measurability of pre/post-social judgments."]},{"source_id":"S3","title":"How social information can improve estimation accuracy in human groups","publisher":"arXiv; subsequently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.02585","source_class":"PRIMARY_RESEARCH","publication_date":"2017-11-07","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Social information is not categorically harmful: reliable peer information improved collective performance in experiments in France and Japan.","Participants first supplied personal estimates and then revised after seeing social information, providing a direct two-stage experimental analogue.","Benefit depended on information quality, quantity, prior knowledge, and heterogeneous susceptibility, supporting the candidate's safety limitation to contexts where delayed cues are not essential."]},{"source_id":"S4","title":"Delphineo","publisher":"Good Judgment Inc.","url":"https://goodjudgment.com/delphineo/","source_class":"COMMERCIAL_FIRST_PARTY","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Good Judgment operates a web-based, mobile-friendly tool that first records each participant's estimate and brief rationale before exposing others' views.","The product then reveals anonymous commentary, permits evaluation of comments, and asks participants to update their forecasts.","Good Judgment says it has tested this modified estimate-talk-estimate process with more than 100 groups and offers related commercial services, establishing an identifiable implementer and expressed operational need."]},{"source_id":"S5","title":"Nominal Group Technique (NGT) – Nominal Brainstorming Steps","publisher":"American Society for Quality","url":"https://asq.org/quality-resources/nominal-group-technique","source_class":"OFFICIAL_GUIDANCE","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Established nominal-group practice begins with silent individual writing before ideas are exposed and discussed.","ASQ recommends the procedure where vocal members dominate, some members think better in silence, or participation is unequal.","The practice demonstrates low-technology workflow feasibility and makes protected independent contribution an established group-decision technique."]},{"source_id":"S6","title":"Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2","publisher":"World Wide Web Consortium","url":"https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG22/","source_class":"STANDARD","publication_date":"2024-12-12","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Interfaces must preserve perceivable information and relationships, keyboard operability, meaningful sequence, predictable behavior, and adequate time.","Dynamic status changes must be programmatically determinable for assistive technologies.","A delayed-cue implementation therefore requires explicit state labeling, accessible reveal behavior, stable focus, and complete-process conformance."]},{"source_id":"S7","title":"Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects ('Common Rule')","publisher":"U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Human Research Protections","url":"https://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/regulations-and-policy/regulations/common-rule/index.html","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"n.d.","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["Covered federally conducted or supported human-subject research is subject to provisions for IRBs, informed consent, and compliance assurances.","The conducting or supporting department or agency retains final judgment about Common Rule coverage.","A consented simulated-choice study is feasible, but the responsible institution must make the applicable review and authorization determination."]},{"source_id":"S8","title":"Software Developers, Quality Assurance Analysts, and Testers","publisher":"U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics","url":"https://www.bls.gov/ooh/Computer-and-Information-Technology/Software-developers.htm","source_class":"GOVERNMENT_OR_REGULATOR","publication_date":"2025","accessed_at":"2026-08-02","claims_supported":["The May 2024 median annual wage was $133,080 for software developers and $102,610 for software quality-assurance analysts and testers.","These wages provide an official labor-cost anchor for resource-equivalent implementation estimates.","Production implementation requires development and quality-assurance work, while actual fully loaded 2026 costs remain organization-specific."]}],"problem_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Two primary experiments directly demonstrate the stated mechanism: prior public decisions can override private signals, and mild social exposure can shrink judgment diversity without improving aggregate error. The problem is consequential for information aggregation, but S3 contradicts any universal claim that social information is harmful; reliable social information can improve accuracy. The opportunity is therefore real but conditional on cue quality, private-evidence strength, task structure, and aggregation rule.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3"]},"stakeholder_evidence":{"support":"MODERATE","rationale":"Good Judgment is an identifiable product operator that implements and commercially offers almost the same independent-estimate, rationale, reveal, and revision workflow, explicitly framing the need as reducing groupthink and making group decisions more effective. ASQ independently recommends silent individual generation where participation or vocal dominance is problematic. No named prospective buyer, budget holder, or target platform for this candidate was found, so forward-looking demand remains unverified.","source_ids":["S4","S5"]},"prior_art":{"proximity":"ESTABLISHED_PRACTICE","closest_analogues":[{"name":"Good Judgment Delphineo modified Delphi workflow","similarity":"Near-exact operational match: participants record an initial estimate and brief rationale before seeing anonymous peer views, then update their forecast.","remaining_difference":"The candidate targets general sequential digital choices, delays popularity/ranking/recommendation cues specifically, requires restoration of all cues, measures revisions, and compares against an all-cues baseline and a debiasing-prompt rival.","source_ids":["S4"]},{"name":"Nominal Group Technique","similarity":"Established practice protects silent independent contribution before group exposure and discussion.","remaining_difference":"NGT primarily generates and prioritizes ideas in facilitated groups; it does not specifically manipulate platform popularity cues, measure private-signal sensitivity, or require a provisional-choice/reveal/revision interface.","source_ids":["S5"]},{"name":"Two-stage social-information experiments","similarity":"Primary studies already elicit personal estimates, expose social information, and measure subsequent revisions and collective accuracy.","remaining_difference":"Those studies establish mechanisms and mixed effects rather than testing this candidate's production-interface package against both an ordinary all-cues screen and a prompt-only rival with accessibility and restoration guardrails.","source_ids":["S2","S3"]}],"distinctive_claim_remaining":"In a specified low-stakes sequential digital-choice setting where private evidence is independently informative, temporarily withholding only social-popularity cues until a provisional choice and rationale are recorded will increase private-signal sensitivity and initial-choice independence relative to both (a) all cues shown immediately and (b) all cues plus a debiasing prompt, while remaining non-inferior on final accuracy, comprehension, accessibility, completion, and trust after reliable cue restoration. This is a context-specific incremental-effect claim, not a new method claim.","confidence":"HIGH"},"implementation_evidence":{"support":"STRONG","rationale":"Good Judgment demonstrates production feasibility for the core state sequence, while nominal-group practice demonstrates workflow feasibility without sophisticated technology. A reversible implementation needs two interface states, a provisional response and rationale record, reliable cue reveal, revision logging, analytics, and rollback. WCAG 2.2 supplies concrete accessibility constraints; covered research requires appropriate Common Rule review and consent. No technical dependency appears unresolved, but target-specific data governance, jurisdiction, accessibility testing, and authorization remain to be completed.","source_ids":["S4","S5","S6","S7","S8"]},"scores":{"meaningful_impact":{"score":4,"rationale":"The mechanism can materially affect information aggregation and confidence, but social information can also improve decisions when it is reliable, making benefit strongly context-dependent.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3"]},"stakeholder_pull":{"score":3,"rationale":"A named commercial operator and a professional quality organization explicitly support independent-first workflows, but no target platform owner or committed funder was identified.","source_ids":["S4","S5"]},"incremental_advantage":{"score":2,"rationale":"The candidate adds precise cue scope, two explicit comparators, restoration guarantees, revision measurement, and safety guardrails, but its central workflow is already deployed and studied.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4"]},"distinctiveness_plausibility":{"score":1,"rationale":"Delphineo substantially reproduces the estimate-rationale-reveal-update sequence, and NGT establishes the broader independent-first practice. Only contextual effectiveness remains distinctive.","source_ids":["S4","S5"]},"technical_implementability":{"score":5,"rationale":"Existing web software implements the core workflow; the required UI states, event logging, reveal, and rollback are routine product-engineering tasks.","source_ids":["S4","S8"]},"adoption_authority_feasibility":{"score":4,"rationale":"A platform owner can authorize a reversible low-stakes interface experiment, subject to institutional research review, accessibility, privacy, and data-governance requirements. No legal power outside ordinary product ownership is required for the bounded test.","source_ids":["S6","S7"]},"evidence_readiness":{"score":4,"rationale":"The problem, counterconditions, workflow, and close prior art are well documented, and a three-arm test is straightforward. Target-setting prevalence and treatment effect remain absent.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3","S4"]},"safety_net_benefit":{"score":3,"rationale":"The design may protect quieter or independently informed contributors and preserves a final informed decision, but it can burden novices or users who legitimately depend on social cues unless immediate recovery and accessibility safeguards are provided.","source_ids":["S3","S5","S6"]},"scalability":{"score":4,"rationale":"The intervention is a reusable interface and analytics pattern, although each new decision domain requires cue classification, material-information review, accessibility validation, and outcome calibration.","source_ids":["S4","S6","S8"]}},"score_confidence":"MODERATE","costs":{"first_evidence":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Preregister, configure, and analyze one low-stakes three-arm simulated-choice experiment with approximately 450 participants, accessibility/usability checks, incentives, and an auditable analysis package.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Approximately 0.10-0.20 resource-equivalent staff-years across research, design, engineering, and analysis.","Participant incentives, recruitment fees, and software services total roughly $7,000-$15,000.","The task uses synthetic or non-sensitive data and an existing experiment platform.","Institutional review is exempt or expedited if applicable; a full-board review is excluded."],"source_ids":["S2","S3","S7","S8"]},"initial_deployment_startup":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Build a reusable prototype with cue gating, provisional-choice and rationale capture, reveal/revision events, feature flags, analytics, accessibility behavior, and rollback controls.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["Approximately 0.4-1.2 combined developer, QA, design, research, and governance staff-years.","BLS wages are converted to 2026 resource equivalents with an assumed 30%-50% loading for benefits, management, and infrastructure.","No new recommendation model, regulated-data integration, or native-mobile rebuild is required."],"source_ids":["S4","S6","S8"]},"operational_launch":{"band_2026_usd":"50K_TO_250K","scope":"Integrate the tested pattern into one production decision flow, including security/privacy review, WCAG testing, event-quality validation, training, launch monitoring, and staged rollback.","confidence":"MODERATE","assumptions":["One existing web product and one decision domain are in scope.","Approximately 0.5-1.5 combined staff-years are required across engineering, QA, accessibility, analytics, legal/privacy, and product operations.","High-stakes financial, medical, employment, benefits, and emergency decisions remain excluded."],"source_ids":["S6","S7","S8"]},"annual_recurring":{"band_2026_usd":"10K_TO_50K","scope":"Maintain one deployed flow, audit restoration failures and accessibility regressions, monitor treatment effects and complaints, and rerun periodic validation.","confidence":"LOW","assumptions":["Approximately 0.1-0.3 combined staff-years annually.","Existing observability, experimentation, accessibility, and incident-response infrastructure is reused.","The band excludes material redesign, additional jurisdictions, and expansion to high-stakes domains."],"source_ids":["S6","S8"]}},"verified_pipeline_gates":{"externally_supported_problem":{"status":"YES","reason":"Primary experiments directly show cascades, reduced diversity, and misplaced confidence after exposure to prior choices or estimates; counterevidence bounds rather than eliminates the problem.","source_ids":["S1","S2","S3"]},"externally_credible_adopter_or_authorizer":{"status":"YES","reason":"Good Judgment is an identifiable operator of an almost identical web workflow and explicitly offers it to improve group forecasting and decision processes; ASQ separately recommends independent-first group procedure.","source_ids":["S4","S5"]},"distinct_testable_incremental_claim":{"status":"YES","reason":"Although the method is established, the target-specific claim against both an ordinary all-cues interface and a prompt-only rival is contrastive and falsifiable on private-signal use, final decision quality, comprehension, accessibility, and trust.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S4"]},"bounded_next_evidence_step":{"status":"YES","reason":"A consented, preregistered, low-stakes three-arm simulated-choice experiment can directly test the remaining claim with seeded correct and misleading social cues and predefined harm metrics.","source_ids":["S2","S3","S7"]},"no_unresolved_safety_or_authority_stop":{"status":"YES","reason":"No inherent stop applies to a reversible low-stakes simulation if all material evidence remains visible, delayed cues are reliably restored before the final choice, WCAG requirements are tested, and the responsible institution makes the applicable review determination. This does not authorize high-stakes deployment.","source_ids":["S6","S7"]},"credible_cost_scope_and_range":{"status":"YES","reason":"The scope is bounded to one experiment and one web flow, and official developer and QA wages support order-of-magnitude resource bands. Incentives, loaded labor, jurisdiction, and integration complexity remain assumptions.","source_ids":["S8"]}},"next_evidence_step":"Run a preregistered, consented, low-stakes randomized experiment with 450 participants assigned equally to: (A) option evidence plus popularity/ranking/recommendation cues shown before the first choice; (B) the same screen plus a prompt to consider one's own evidence; or (C) the same nonsocial evidence with social cues explicitly labeled as temporarily unavailable until a provisional choice and short rationale are recorded, followed by complete reveal and an editable final choice. Randomize private-signal strength and whether seeded social cues are accurate or misleading. Primary outcomes are provisional-choice sensitivity to private evidence and residual conformity to the seeded cue; secondary outcomes are aggregate error and diversity, revision direction, final accuracy, comprehension, completion time, abandonment, trust/concealment ratings, and assistive-technology task success. The claim is falsified if C does not outperform both A and B on the preregistered private-signal outcome, or if any improvement is offset by crossing prespecified non-inferiority margins for final accuracy, comprehension, accessibility, completion, or trust. Halt if cues fail to restore, participants confuse delay with failure, or material safety information is withheld.","blocking_evidence":["No target platform, decision domain, or accountable product owner has been named.","No target-setting prevalence estimate shows how often visible social cues displace independently elicited private evidence.","No live comparative effect estimate exists against both the ordinary interface and prompt-only rival.","No target-specific assessment establishes which cues are social rather than material, legally required, safety-critical, or accessibility-supporting.","No jurisdiction-specific privacy, consumer-protection, accessibility, or human-subjects determination has been completed.","No production evidence establishes reliable restoration, rollback performance, or subgroup effects for novices and assistive-technology users."],"research_disposition":"KNOWN_PRACTICE_DIFFUSION","world_novelty_boundary":"World novelty is unmeasured. The bounded search establishes that the central estimate/rationale-before-social-information/reveal/revision method is already an implemented commercial workflow and an established family of group-decision practices. It does not measure patentability, freedom to operate, market size, realized impact, or whether the precise target-domain comparator-and-guardrail package has appeared elsewhere.","arm":"SENTINEL","candidate_version":0,"controller_recommendation":{"action":"STOP_EMPIRICAL_RESEARCH_NEEDED","repairable":true,"material_progress_observed":true,"progress_targets":["Name one low-stakes target decision flow, accountable platform owner, applicable jurisdiction, and data/ethics authorizer.","Document a cue taxonomy that separates delayable social signals from material facts, risks, prices, eligibility, uncertainty, disclosures, and accessibility support.","Preregister the three-arm design, primary estimand, subgroup analyses, minimum effect of interest, non-inferiority margins, stopping rules, and analysis code.","Demonstrate WCAG 2.2 keyboard, screen-reader, focus, timing, state-labeling, and reveal behavior before participant exposure.","Run the bounded experiment and show superiority to both comparators on private-signal use without harm to final accuracy, comprehension, accessibility, completion, or trust.","Archive restoration-failure logs, revision data, null results, and adverse subgroup effects, and retain a tested one-step rollback."],"reason":"Web research resolved the existence of the problem, important counterconditions, implementation feasibility, and substantial prior-art collision. The remaining value proposition is a target-specific causal effect and safety claim that cannot be verified through further bounded web search; it requires participant testing and target-platform evidence. The method should therefore be treated as established-practice diffusion rather than conceptual innovation."}}