Kwak Youngbin, Huettel Scott
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01002, USA.
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2018 Jan;182:46-54. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2017.11.013. Epub 2017 Nov 11.
Adaptive decision making requires analysis of available information during the process of choice. In many decisions that information is presented visually - which means that variations in visual properties (e.g., salience, complexity) can potentially influence the process of choice. In the current study, we demonstrate that variation in the left-right positioning of risky and safe decision options can influence the canonical gain-loss framing effect. Two experiments were conducted using an economic framing task in which participants chose between gambles and certain outcomes. The first experiment demonstrated that the magnitude of the gain-loss framing effect was greater when the certain option signaling the current frame was presented on the left side of the visual display. Eye-tracking data during task performance showed a left-gaze bias for initial fixations, suggesting that the option presented on the left side was processed first. Combination of eye-tracking and choice data revealed that there was a significant effect of direction of first gaze (i.e. left vs. right) as well as an interaction between gaze direction and identity of the first fixated information (i.e. certain vs. gamble) regardless of frame. A second experiment presented the gamble and certain options in a random order, with a temporal delay between their presentations. We found that the magnitude of gain-loss framing was larger when the certain option was presented first, regardless of left and right positioning, only in individuals with lower risk-taking tendencies. The effect of presentation order on framing was not present in high risk-takers. These results suggest that the sequence of visual information processing as well as their left-right positioning can bias choices by changing the impact of the presented information during risky decision making.
适应性决策需要在选择过程中分析可用信息。在许多决策中，这些信息是以视觉方式呈现的——这意味着视觉属性的变化（例如，显著性、复杂性）可能会潜在地影响选择过程。在当前的研究中，我们证明了风险和安全决策选项的左右位置变化会影响经典的得失框架效应。我们使用经济框架任务进行了两项实验，在该任务中，参与者在赌博和确定结果之间进行选择。第一个实验表明，当表示当前框架的确定选项出现在视觉显示的左侧时，得失框架效应的幅度更大。任务执行过程中的眼动数据显示，初始注视存在向左注视偏差，这表明左侧呈现的选项首先被处理。眼动和选择数据的结合表明，无论框架如何，首次注视方向（即左与右）以及注视方向与首次注视信息的身份（即确定与赌博）之间存在显著影响以及相互作用。第二个实验以随机顺序呈现赌博和确定选项，且它们的呈现之间存在时间延迟。我们发现，只有在冒险倾向较低的个体中，当确定选项首先呈现时，无论左右位置如何配置，得失框架效应的幅度都更大。在高风险者中不存在呈现顺序对框架效应的影响。这些结果表明，视觉信息处理的顺序及其左右位置可以通过改变风险决策过程中所呈现信息的影响来使选择产生偏差。
