Abstract

Does exposure to cognitive load affect key properties of economic behavior? In this experiment, subjects face a series of simple binary decision tasks between prospects, testing for monotonicity in monetary payments, consistency with (first-order) stochastic dominance, reduction of compound lotteries, risk attitudes, and ambiguity attitudes. Cognitive load is manipulated via simultaneous memory tasks. Our data show treatment differences resulting from cognitive load for decision tasks with risky outcomes. However, cognitive load has no impact on monotonicity and ambiguity attitudes. Under a dual-process view of human decision-making, our findings suggest that ambiguity attitudes and preferences for “more certain money” are intuitive, not reasoned.

中文翻译：

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不确定性和认知负荷下的选择

摘要

认知负荷是否会影响经济行为的关键属性？在这个实验中，受试者面临着前景之间的一系列简单的二元决策任务，测试货币支付的单调性、与（一阶）随机支配的一致性、减少复合彩票、风险态度和模糊态度。认知负荷是通过同时进行的记忆任务来控制的。我们的数据显示，由于对具有风险结果的决策任务的认知负荷而导致治疗差异。然而，认知负荷对单调性和模糊性态度没有影响。在人类决策的双重过程观点下，我们的研究结果表明，模糊态度和对“更确定的金钱”的偏好是直觉的，而不是理性的。