Abstract:
Choice-consistency is considered a hallmark of rational value-based choice. However, because the cognitive apparatus supporting decision-making is imperfect, real decision-makers often show some degree of choice inconsistency. Cognitive models are necessary to complement idealized choice axioms with attention, perception and memory processes. Specifically, compelling theoretical work suggests that the (imperfect) retention of choice-relevant memories might be important for choice-consistency, but this hypothesis has not been tested directly. We used a novel multi-attribute visual choice paradigm to experimentally test the influence of memory retrieval of exemplars on choice-consistency. Our manipulation check confirmed that our retention interval manipulation successfully reduced memory representation strength. Given this, we found strong evidence against our hypothesis that choice-consistency decreases with increasing retention time. However, quality controls indicated that the choice-consistency of our participants was non-discernable from random behaviour. In addition, an exploratory analysis showed essentially no test-retest reliability of choice-consistency between two observations. Taken together, this suggests the presence of a floor effect in our data and, thus, low data quality for conclusively evaluating our hypotheses. Further exploration tentatively suggested a high difficulty of discriminating between the choice objects driving this floor effect.
摘要:
选择一致性被认为是理性基于价值的选择的标志。然而,因为支持决策的认知装置不完善,真正的决策者往往表现出一定程度的选择不一致。认知模型对于用注意力补充理想化的选择公理是必要的,感知和记忆过程。具体来说,令人信服的理论工作表明,选择相关记忆的(不完美)保留可能对选择一致性很重要,但这一假设尚未得到直接检验。我们使用了一种新颖的多属性视觉选择范式来实验测试样本的记忆检索对选择一致性的影响。我们的操作检查证实,我们的保留间隔操作成功地降低了记忆表示强度。鉴于此,我们发现强有力的证据反对我们的假设,即选择一致性随着保留时间的增加而降低.然而,质量控制表明,我们参与者的选择一致性与随机行为是无法辨别的.此外,一项探索性分析显示,两个观察结果之间的选择一致性基本上没有测试-重测可靠性.一起来看,这表明我们的数据中存在地板效应,因此,数据质量低,无法最终评估我们的假设。进一步的探索初步表明,很难区分驱动这种地板效应的选择对象。