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Desirable feelings often stem from various factors: Mental processes involved in decoy effects influencing one's preferences and choices.

Investigate the role of cognitive processes in decoy effects, focusing on attention and comparison, using eye-tracker experiments. Explore how a decoy option influences consumer choices.

Changes in Attraction Originate from Varied Factors: Role of Attention and Comparison in Deception...
Changes in Attraction Originate from Varied Factors: Role of Attention and Comparison in Deception Techniques

Desirable feelings often stem from various factors: Mental processes involved in decoy effects influencing one's preferences and choices.

A new study has provided critical insights into the decoy effect, a phenomenon where adding a seemingly irrelevant option to a binary choice shifts preference towards a target option. The research, carried out using an eye-tracker paradigm, focused on asymmetrically dominated decoys to examine the attentional and comparative processes responsible for the attraction effect.

The study, conducted using an IT software platform that integrated behavioral outcome and biosensors data, revealed that the decoy effect increases comparisons with the choice dominant pattern, affecting preferences. Eye-tracking data verified the attentional and dynamic models of decision making in the context of the attraction (decoy) effect during multi-attribute decision making.

By directly measuring where and for how long participants looked at different options and attributes, the eye-tracking data revealed how attention shifts among choices. This supports dynamic models that propose decision weights evolve over time with gaze patterns, and it evidences the role of selective attention as posited by attentional models.

In multi-attribute choice tasks with a decoy option that asymmetrically dominates one target, eye-tracking showed participants spent more visual attention (longer fixations and more frequent gazes) on the decoy and the target that it dominates. This pattern matches predictions from attentional models that shifting gaze increases the relative value of the attended options, thus generating the attraction effect.

Dynamic models, such as sequential sampling models that incorporate gaze bias, are also supported because eye-tracking confirms that decision evidence accumulates preferentially for information that receives greater visual attention over time, explaining changes in choice probabilities induced by the decoy.

Prior research has consistently used eye-tracking to validate both attentional and dynamic models in multi-attribute decisions involving decoys by linking gaze allocation patterns to choice outcomes. This research further confirms the central importance of visual attention in shaping context-dependent preferences.

In summary, the study's eye-tracking data verify attentional and dynamic decision models in decoy effect studies by demonstrating systematic gaze allocation differences toward decoys and related targets, showing that attention shifts dynamically over the course of decision making, and connecting gaze patterns with changes in choice probabilities consistent with theoretical model predictions.

The experiment lasted between 15 to 30 minutes in a single session, providing valuable insights into how the attraction effect arises via shifts in attentional focus and dynamic accumulation of preference evidence during multi-attribute decision making. The findings of the study support attentional and dynamic models of decision making, offering a significant step forward in understanding the mechanisms behind this intriguing phenomenon.

  1. The study's focus on eye-health, through the use of an eye-tracker paradigm, sheds light on the role of attention in medical-conditions such as the decoy effect, providing insights into health-and-wellness.
  2. The integration of technology, like the IT software platform used in the study, enables the examination of mental-health phenomena by measuring participant's gaze patterns during decision-making processes.
  3. Future research on science, particularly in the field of health-and-wellness, can benefit from the technological advancements showcased in the study, as these tools help investigate how attention shapes our preferences and decisions in various medical-conditions and multi-attribute decisions.

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