The development of perceptual averaging: learning what to do,not just how to do it

The mature visual system condenses complex scenes into simple summary statistics (e.g., average size, location, orientation, etc.). However, children, often perform poorly on perceptual averaging tasks. Children's difficulties are typically thought to represent the suboptimal implementation of an adult‐like strategy. This paper examines another possibility: that children actually make decisions in a qualitatively different way to adults (optimal implementation of a non‐ideal strategy). Ninety children (6–7, 8–9, 10–11 years) and 30 adults were asked to locate the middle of randomly generated dot‐clouds. Nine plausible decision strategies were formulated, and each was fitted to observers' trial‐by‐trial response data (Reverse Correlation). When the number of visual elements was low (N < 6), children used a qualitatively different decision strategy from adults: appearing to “join up the dots” and locate the gravitational center of the enclosing shape. Given denser displays, both children and adults used an ideal strategy of arithmetically averaging individual points. Accounting for this difference in decision strategy explained 29% of children's lower precision. These findings suggest that children are not simply suboptimal at performing adult‐like computations, but may at times use sensible, but qualitatively different strategies to make perceptual judgments. Learning which strategy is best in which circumstance might be an important driving factor of perceptual development.     

Children's decision strategies and their adaptation to task characteristics

Recent research has established decision making as an important type of strategic problem solving. From this perspective, the present paper examines strategic decision behavior in children and, in particular, the ability to adapt decision strategies to task characteristics. Twelve-year-olds' strategies were identified through analyses of information search patterns with different-sized matrices of information. Using a similar procedure, Payne (1976, Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 16, 366–387) found that adults shifted to more efficient (but less “optimal”) strategies as task complexity increased. The present study indicates that, by 12 years of age, children understand many of the basic concepts of strategic decision making, such as compensation and elimination, and, like adults, they modify their strategies appropriately in response to complexity. However, their behavior differs from that reported for adults in that the distinctions among specific decision strategies are not clear cut, and there is frequent use of less demanding, cost-cutting strategies even with smaller decision tasks. Memory capacity and topic interest also affect decision strategy. The results support the feasibility of further developmental study of decision strategies. Analytical techniques developed here for use with children may profitably be applied in studies with adults as well.     

What People Want From Their Professionals: Attitudes Toward Decision‐making Strategies

Attitudes toward four types of decision‐making strategies—clinical/fully rational, clinical/heuristic, actuarial/fully rational, and actuarial/heuristic—were examined across three studies. In Study 1, undergraduate students were split randomly between legal and medical decision‐making scenarios and asked to rate each strategy in terms of the following: (i) preference; (ii) accuracy; (iii) fairness; (iv) ethicalness; and (v) its perceived similarity to the strategies used by actual legal and medical professionals to make decisions. Studies 2 and 3 extended Study 1 by using a more relevant scenario and a community sample, respectively. Across the three studies, the clinical/fully rational strategy tended to be rated the highest across all attitudinal judgments, whereas the actuarial/heuristic strategy tended to receive the lowest ratings. Considering the two strategy‐differentiating factors separately, clinically based strategies tended to be rated higher than actuarially based strategies, and fully rational strategies were always rated higher than heuristic‐based strategies. The potential implications of the results for professionals' and those affected by their decisions are discussed. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stability of choices in a risky decision‐making task: a 3‐year longitudinal study with children and adults

In a 3‐year follow‐up to Levin and Hart's ( 2003 ) study, we observed the same children, now 9–11 years old, and their parents in the same risky decision‐making task. At the aggregate level the same pattern of means was observed across time periods. At the individual level the key variables were significantly correlated across time periods for both children and adults. Taken together with the results from the original study and earlier studies, these results solidify the following conclusions: children utilize both probability and outcome information in risky decision‐making; the tendency to make more risky choices to avoid a loss than to achieve a gain of equal magnitude, which is a major tenet of the leading theories of risky decision‐making, occurs for children as well as adults; children make more risky choices than adults; temperamental predictors of risky choice are valid for children as well as for adults. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How formulating implementation plans and remembering past actions facilitate the enactment of effortful decisions

Building on prior research studying effortful decision making and enactment processes (Bagozzi, Dholakia, & Basuroy, 2003; BDB), we identify and provide an in‐depth understanding of two specific self‐regulatory strategies: (1) formulating an implementation plan, and (2) remembering past actions, that decision makers can use in facilitating enactment of effortful decisions. The results of three experiments, in which the decision maker's goal and self‐regulatory strategy were manipulated, showed that for goals that decision makers chose volitionally, the motivational effects of both these strategies lay in increasing levels of proximal implementation‐related variables (implementation intentions, plan completeness, plan enactment, and goal realization) significantly. In contrast, for goals that were assigned to participants, these strategies' motivational effects additionally extended to significantly increasing distal goal‐related variables (goal desire, goal intentions, perceived self‐efficacy, and implementation desires). The theoretical implications of our findings are discussed, and future research opportunities are explored. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Misreporting signs of child abuse: The role of decision‐making and outcome information

Two studies provided evidence that a decision to report an ambiguous case of child abuse affected subsequent memory of the case information, such that participants falsely recognized details that were not presented in the original information, but that are schematically associated with child abuse. Moreover, post‐decision information that the child had later died from abuse influenced the memory reports of participants who had chosen not to report the case, increasing their reports of false schema‐consistent details. This suggests that false decision‐consistent memories are primarily due to sense‐making, schematic processing rather than the motivation to justify the decision. The present findings points to an important mechanism by which decision information can become distorted in retrospect, and emphasize the difficulties of improving future decision‐making by contemplating past decisions. The results also indicate that decisions may generate false memories in the apparent absence of external suggestion or misleading information. Implications for decision‐making theory, and applied practices are discussed.     

Inducing compensatory information processing through decision aids that facilitate effort reduction: an experimental assessment

This paper examines the role of computer‐based decision aids in reducing cognitive effort and therefore influencing strategy selection. It extends and complements the work reported in the behavioral decision theory literature on the role of effort and accuracy in choice tasks. The central proposition of the research is that if a decision aid makes a strategy that should lead to a more accurate outcome at least as easy to employ as a simpler, but less accurate, heuristic, then the use of a decision aid should induce that more accurate strategy and as a consequence improve decision quality. Otherwise, a decision aid may only influence decision‐making efficiency. This occurs because decision makers use a decision aid in such a way as to minimize their overall level of effort expenditure. Results from a laboratory experiment support this proposition. When a more accurate normative strategy is made less effortful to use, it is used. This result is consistent with the findings of our prior studies, but more clearly demonstrates that decision aids can induce the use of normatively oriented strategies. The key to inducing these strategies is to make the normative strategy easier to execute than competing alternative strategies. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Groups, group members and individual decision processes: the effects of decision strategy, social interaction style and reception of decision-threatening information on post-decision processes

In two experiments, one conducted at an individual level and one at a group level, it was investigated how decision strategies and the reception of decision-threatening information affect the degree of post-decision consolidation for both individual and group decision-makers. In Experiment 1, roughly half the 55 participants made decisions in three-person groups and the other half individually. The type of decision strategies subjects employed (compensatory, non-compensatory, other) was assessed by questionnaire. In two post-decision sessions, consolidation was assessed using a memory task, either decision-supporting or decision-threatening information being provided at the start of the last post-decision session. In Experiment 2, the same design and procedure were used at a group level. In both experiments, the groups (and the single group members) were analyzed with the SYMLOG instrument. The results indicated that individual decision-makers consolidated their own decisions more than members of decision-making groups. There was also greater post-decision consolidation with the use of non-compensatory decision strategies as well as with reception of decision-threatening information, this latter result being seen as providing an explanation for the greater consolidation that individual decision-makers showed. Furthermore, single task-oriented group members and groups with a task-oriented leader consolidated the decision made by their group.     

How Information Availability Interacts with Visual Attention during Judgment and Decision Tasks

Decisions in front of a supermarket shelf probably involve a mix of visually available information and associated memories—and interactions between those two. Several cognitive processes, such as decision making, search, and various judgments, are therefore likely to co‐occur, and each process will influence visual attention. We conducted two eye‐tracking experiments capturing parts of these features by having participants make either judgments or decisions concerning products that had been previously encoded. Half the time, participants made their choices with full information about the available products and half the time with crucial task‐relevant information removed. By comparing participants' use of visual attention during decisions and search‐based and memory‐based judgments, we can better understand how visual attention is differently employed between tasks and how it depends on the visual environment. We found that participants' visual attention during decisions is sensitive to evaluations already made during encoding and strongly characterized by preferential looking to the options later to be chosen. When the task environment is rich enough, participants engage in advanced integrative visual behavior and improve their decision quality. In contrast, visual attention during judgments made on the same products reflects a search‐like behavior when all information is available and a more focused type of visual behavior when information is removed. Our findings contribute not only to the literature on how visual attention is used during decision making but also to methodological questions concerning how to measure and identify task‐specific features of visual attention in ecologically valid ways. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Self–other differences in multiattribute decision making: Compensatory versus noncompensatory decision strategies

When making decisions where options involve multiple attributes, a person can choose to use a compensatory, utility maximizing strategy, which involves consideration and integration of all available attributes. Alternatively, a person can choose a noncompensatory strategy that extracts only the most important and reliable attributes. The present research examined whether other‐oriented decisions would involve greater reliance on a noncompensatory, lexicographic decision strategy than self‐oriented decisions. In three studies (Mturk workers and college students), the difference in other‐oriented versus self‐oriented decisions in a medical decision context was explained by a subsample of participants that chose the death minimizing operation on all 10 decisions (Study 1) and a subsample of participants who self‐reported that they used a strategy that minimized the chance of death on every decision (i.e., a lexicographic mortality heuristic; Study 2). In Study 2, tests of mediation found that self‐reported use of the mortality heuristic completely accounted for the self–other effect on decisions. In Study 3, participants were more likely to report prospectively that they would adopt the mortality heuristic when making decisions for others than for themselves, suggesting that participants were not mistakenly inferring a lexicographic decision strategy from their past behavior. The results suggest that self–other effects in multiattribute choice involve differential use of compensatory versus noncompensatory decision strategies and that beyond this group difference, individual differences in the use of these strategies also exist within self‐oriented and other‐oriented decisions.     

Utilizing probabilities as decision weights in closed and open information boards: A comparison of children and adults

Decisions in preschoolers (6 years), elementary schoolers (9.7 years), and adults (21 years) were studied with an information board crossing three probabilistic cues (validities: .83, .67, .50) with two options. Experiment 1 (n = 215) applied a standard version of the information board (closed presentation format), in which information must be searched sequentially and kept in mind for the decision. Experiment 2 (n = 217) applied an open format (Glöckner & Betsch, 2008), in which all information was visible during decision making. Elementary schoolers but not preschoolers benefited from an open format — indicated by an increase in using probabilities as decision weights. In the open but not closed format, choices were biased by normatively irrelevant information (the lure). Variations in the prediction patterns of the cues influenced decisions in all age groups. Effects for presentation format, pattern, and lure jointly indicate that even children are capable of considering multiple information in their decisions.     

A Repeated Forced‐choice Line‐up Procedure Provides Suspect Bias Information with No Cost to Accuracy for Older Children and Adults

In two experiments and one follow‐up analysis, we examined the impact of using a repeated forced‐choice (RFC) line‐up procedure with child and adult eyewitnesses. The RFC procedure divides the identification task into a series of exhaustive binary comparisons that produces not only traditional line‐up information (identification decision and confidence) but also information about witness' selection behavior. Experiment 1 revealed that younger children (6‐ to 8‐year‐olds) struggled with the RFC procedure, while older children (9‐ to 11‐year‐olds) performed as well with the RFC procedure as with a simultaneous procedure (with wildcard). Experiment 2 replicated this comparable performance with adults. Witnesses' suspect selection behavior during the RFC was predictive of identification accuracy for older children and adults. A model examined the additional information provided by the RFC in experiments 1 and 2 and provided evidence that witnesses' patterns of responding can be used to estimate suspect selection bias (a proxy for suspect recognition strength) associated with individual line‐up decisions. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

When the Rule is Ruled Out: Exemplars and Rules in Decisions from Memory

What are the cognitive processes underlying people's decisions from memory? Previous research suggests that these processes can be best described by strategies that are based on abstract knowledge about the decision task (e.g., cue–criterion relations). However, recent results show that different cue presentation formats trigger the use of different decision strategies and that exemplar‐based strategies can account for memory‐based decisions as well. In three experiments, this effect was replicated, and mediation analyses identified the quality of the underlying knowledge representation as the critical variable that determines decision behavior. This supports the view that exemplar‐based reasoning is used as a backup system if cue abstraction is hindered. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

儿童完全信息最后通牒博弈决策的发展

考查了200名4-12岁儿童及40名成人完全信息最后通牒博弈决策的发展趋势与特点,并对情绪在最后通牒博弈决策中的作用做了初步探索。结果表明：（1）完全信息最后通牒任务中,作为分配者时4-6岁儿童更多提出小于半数的要约,而9-12岁儿童和成人则更多地提出平等分配的要约。作为应答者时儿童和成人均接受大部分要约。（2）公平策略和权宜策略是儿童与成人分配者采取的主要策略,而儿童与成人应答者则主要采用权宜策略。（3）基于满意与否的情绪体验是儿童应答者是否行使否决权的直接动力。     

Perceptual grouping does not affect multi-attribute decision making if no processing costs are involved

Adaptive strategy selection implies that a decision strategy is chosen based on its fit to the task and situation. However, other aspects, such as the way information is presented, can determine information search behavior; especially when the application of certain strategies over others is facilitated. But are such display effects on multi-attribute decisions also at work when the manipulation does not entail differential costs for different decision strategies? Three Mouselab experiments with hidden information and one eye tracking experiment with an open information board revealed that decision behavior is unaffected by purely perceptual manipulations of the display based on Gestalt principles; that is, based on manipulations that induce no noteworthy processing costs for different information search patterns. We discuss our results in the context of previous findings on display effects; specifically, how the combination of these findings and our results reveal the crucial role of differential processing costs for different strategies for the emergence of display effects. This finding describes a boundary condition of the commonly acknowledged influence of information displays and is in line with the ideas of adaptive strategy selection and cost–benefit tradeoffs.     

Analytic Confidence and Political Decision‐Making: Theoretical Principles and Experimental Evidence From National Security Professionals

When making decisions under uncertainty, it is important to distinguish between the probability that a judgment is true and the confidence analysts possess in drawing their conclusions. Yet analysts and decision‐makers often struggle to define “confidence” in this context, and many ways that scholars use this term do not necessarily facilitate decision‐making under uncertainty. To help resolve this confusion, we argue for disaggregating analytic confidence along three dimensions: reliability of available evidence, range of reasonable opinion, and responsiveness to new information. After explaining how these attributes hold different implications for decision‐making in principle, we present survey experiments examining how analysts and decision‐makers employ these ideas in practice. Our first experiment found that each conception of confidence distinctively influenced national security professionals' evaluations of high‐stakes decisions. Our second experiment showed that inexperienced assessors of uncertainty could consistently discriminate among our conceptions of confidence when making political forecasts. We focus on national security, where debates about defining “confidence levels” have clear practical implications. But our theoretical framework generalizes to nearly any area of political decision‐making, and our empirical results provide encouraging evidence that analysts and decision‐makers can grasp these abstract elements of uncertainty.     

儿童的决策行为

现有的研究表明,儿童早期就具有一定的利用概率和统计信息来做决策的能力,这种能力随着年龄增长,但和成人相比存在差异;儿童和成人同样运用启发式来做决策,且受许多判断偏见的影响。儿童的决策行为受到人格特征、性别、年龄、任务领域特殊性和信息表征等因素的影响。文中还介绍了决策的自我调节模型和“双过程”理论,从不同的角度解释和预测儿童决策行为的发展。最后分析了儿童决策研究的趋势。     

A Self‐regulation Perspective on Hidden‐profile Problems: If–Then Planning to Review Information Improves Group Decisions

In hidden‐profile (HP) problems, groups squander their potential to make superior decisions because members fail to capitalize on each other's unique knowledge (unshared information). A new self‐regulation perspective suggests that hindrances in goal striving (e.g., failing to seize action opportunities) contribute to this problem. Implementation intentions (if–then plans) are known to help deal with hindrances in goal striving; therefore, supporting decision goals with if–then plans should improve the impact of unshared information on group decisions. Indeed, in line with past research, control participants in two experiments rarely identified the best alternative despite monetary incentives and setting decision goals. In contrast, simply adding if–then plans to review advantages of the non‐preferred alternatives before making the final decision significantly increased solution rates. Process manipulations (Experiment 1) and measures (Experiment 2) indicate that conceptualizing HP problems as a self‐regulation challenge provides explanatory power beyond existing accounts. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.