TY - JOUR
T1 - A pupillary index of susceptibility to decision biases
AU - Eldar, Eran
AU - Felso, Valkyrie
AU - Cohen, Jonathan D.
AU - Niv, Yael
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - Abstract: The demonstration that human decision-making can systematically violate the laws of rationality has had a wide impact on behavioural sciences. In this study, we use a pupillary index to adjudicate between two existing hypotheses about how irrational biases emerge: the hypothesis that biases result from fast, effortless processing and the hypothesis that biases result from more extensive integration. While effortless processing is associated with smaller pupillary responses, more extensive integration is associated with larger pupillary responses. Thus, we tested the relationship between pupil response and choice behaviour on six different foundational decision-making tasks that are classically used to demonstrate irrational biases. Participants demonstrated the expected systematic biases and their pupillary measurements satisfied pre-specified quality checks. Planned analyses returned inconclusive results, but exploratory examination of the data revealed an association between high pupillary responses and biased decisions. The findings provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that biases arise from gradual information integration. Protocol registration: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 19 December 2018. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4368452.v1.
AB - Abstract: The demonstration that human decision-making can systematically violate the laws of rationality has had a wide impact on behavioural sciences. In this study, we use a pupillary index to adjudicate between two existing hypotheses about how irrational biases emerge: the hypothesis that biases result from fast, effortless processing and the hypothesis that biases result from more extensive integration. While effortless processing is associated with smaller pupillary responses, more extensive integration is associated with larger pupillary responses. Thus, we tested the relationship between pupil response and choice behaviour on six different foundational decision-making tasks that are classically used to demonstrate irrational biases. Participants demonstrated the expected systematic biases and their pupillary measurements satisfied pre-specified quality checks. Planned analyses returned inconclusive results, but exploratory examination of the data revealed an association between high pupillary responses and biased decisions. The findings provide preliminary support for the hypothesis that biases arise from gradual information integration. Protocol registration: The stage 1 protocol for this Registered Report was accepted in principle on 19 December 2018. The protocol, as accepted by the journal, can be found at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4368452.v1.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41562-020-01006-3
DO - 10.1038/s41562-020-01006-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 33398147
AN - SCOPUS:85098801291
SN - 2397-3374
VL - 5
SP - 653
EP - 662
JO - Nature Human Behaviour
JF - Nature Human Behaviour
IS - 5
ER -