糖心TV

Takao Noguchi (Department of Psychology)

Multi-alternative decision by sampling

The attraction, compromise, and similarity effects in multi-alternative decision making demonstrate that the preference for an alternative is not independent of the other alternatives in the choice set. To explain these context effects, we propose the multi-alternative decision by sampling model. The model has three components: 1) an alternative is evaluated through a series of comparisons of pairs of alternatives on a single attribute value, 2) similar alternatives are compared more often, and 3) relatively small differences in attribute value are ignored. We discuss empirical evidence for each of these components, and explain how multi-alternative decision by sampling explains context effects in multi-alternative choice.