Strategy-Specific Decision Making with Incomplete Information

Abstract

Decision making rarely occurs in perfect environments with unlimited time and complete information. Additionally, individual variations in decision strategy are nuanced and time-evolving. It is therefore important to understand the effects of distributions of information under uncertainty, and that we do so with respect to a range of decision strategies. In this study we assess decision making in three decision environments covering both heuristic and analytic strategies. We find that the amount of information presented to the participant and the way in which that information is structured within each cue (across options) significantly affects decision performance in all environments. Additionally, the participants’ information access trends indicate that decision performance is linked with an adaptation of decision strategy to match the environment.