Department of Marketing, Yale School of Management, New Haven, CT 06511;
Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 Dec 15;117(50):31738-31747. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2010056117. Epub 2020 Nov 24.
Navigating conflict is integral to decision-making, serving a central role both in the subjective experience of choice as well as contemporary theories of how we choose. However, the lack of a sensitive, accessible, and interpretable metric of conflict has led researchers to focus on choice itself rather than how individuals arrive at that choice. Using mouse-tracking-continuously sampling computer mouse location as participants decide-we demonstrate the theoretical and practical uses of dynamic assessments of choice from decision onset through conclusion. Specifically, we use mouse tracking to index conflict, quantified by the relative directness to the chosen option, in a domain for which conflict is integral: decisions involving risk. In deciding whether to accept risk, decision makers must integrate gains, losses, status quos, and outcome probabilities, a process that inevitably involves conflict. Across three preregistered studies, we tracked participants' motor movements while they decided whether to accept or reject gambles. Our results show that 1) mouse-tracking metrics of conflict sensitively detect differences in the subjective value of risky versus certain options; 2) these metrics of conflict strongly predict participants' risk preferences (loss aversion and decreasing marginal utility), even on a single-trial level; 3) these mouse-tracking metrics outperform participants' reaction times in predicting risk preferences; and 4) manipulating risk preferences via a broad versus narrow bracketing manipulation influences conflict as indexed by mouse tracking. Together, these results highlight the importance of measuring conflict during risky choice and demonstrate the usefulness of mouse tracking as a tool to do so.
在决策中，应对冲突是不可或缺的，它在选择的主观体验以及我们选择的当代理论中都起着核心作用。然而，由于缺乏敏感、易于理解且可解释的冲突指标，研究人员将注意力集中在选择本身，而不是个体如何做出选择上。通过使用鼠标追踪——连续采样参与者在做出决策时的计算机鼠标位置——我们展示了从决策开始到结束时对选择进行动态评估的理论和实际用途。具体来说，我们使用鼠标追踪来索引冲突，其通过与所选选项的相对直接程度来量化，这在一个冲突不可或缺的领域中：涉及风险的决策。在决定是否接受风险时，决策者必须整合收益、损失、现状和结果概率，这个过程不可避免地会涉及冲突。在三项预先注册的研究中，我们追踪了参与者在决定是否接受或拒绝赌博时的运动动作。我们的研究结果表明：1）鼠标追踪冲突的指标能够敏感地检测到风险与确定选项的主观价值差异；2）这些冲突指标可以强烈预测参与者的风险偏好（损失厌恶和边际效用递减），甚至在单次试验水平上也是如此；3）这些鼠标追踪指标在预测风险偏好方面优于参与者的反应时间；4）通过广泛与狭窄的范围划分操纵风险偏好会影响鼠标追踪所索引的冲突。总的来说，这些结果强调了在风险决策中测量冲突的重要性，并展示了使用鼠标追踪作为工具来进行测量的有用性。
