研究実績の概要 |
In three sets of experimental studies, published in seven different journal articles, we obtained converging evidence on the role of visual attention in value-based decision making that requires a thorough revision of current theories. Previously, it had been asserted that visual attention serves to enhance the value of attended items during decision-making. Instead, we found that the gaze duration is affected primarily by the difficulty or ambiguity of information processing. In one series of studies we found that subjects tended to pay longer attention to items that received an intermediate evaluation (not clearly good or bad). In another series of studies, we found that predictive cues influenced the gaze duration in such a way as to lead to a confirmation bias. This implies that longer gaze durations are found for invalid predictions, regardless of whether this leads to a heightened or lowered evaluation. Finally, in a third set of studies, we found that negative primes affected the evaluation by interfering with the allocation of attention, whereas neutral or positive primes did not have such an effect. Taken altogether, the three lines of investigation provided firm evidence in favor of an information-integration account of the role of attention during value-based decision-making, and against a gradual approach account of attention as a precursor to choice.
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