Submission 299
The Cognitive Mechanisms of Choice Deferral
SymposiumTalk-05
Presented by: Barbara Oberbauer
Contrary to the decision-making behavior that is typically studied in the lab, in many real-world settings individuals are not forced to choose but rather have the possibility to defer decisions to a later point in time. However, the cognitive processes underlying choice deferral remain poorly understood. Two concurrent frameworks describe choice deferral either as (1) a choice process that is prematurely terminated as individuals fail to single out the best option or (2) as an appraisal process in which decisions are deferred if the overall value of all choice options is low.
We aim at elucidating the cognitive process of choice deferral by comparing the similarity of visual search patterns between choice deferral and choice as well as appraisal, thereby leveraging our knowledge about visual search and overall value in choice and appraisal to investigate how people make decisions when having the opportunity to defer.
Participants are asked to evaluate sets of previously rated consumer products under three conditions: (1) selecting the most preferred item, (2) assessing the overall value of the set, and (3) choosing their most preferred item with the option to defer while gaze was recorded through eye-tracking. Importantly, participants are required to complete choice trials that they have initially deferred at the end of the experiment.
We compare search patterns across tasks using representational similarity analysis (RSA) and explore whether search patterns in choice deferral are more similar to choice or appraisal, thereby adding important insights about shared cognitive processes across these tasks.