Hypotheses about decision processes are often formulated qualitatively and remain silent about the interplay of decision, memorial, and other cognitive processes. At the same time, existing decision models are specified at varying levels of detail, making it difficult to compare them. We provide a methodological primer on how detailed cognitive architectures such as ACT-R allow remedying these problems. To make our point, we address a controversy, namely, whether noncompensatory or compensatory processes better describe how people make decisions from the accessibility of memories. We specify 39 models of accessibility-based decision processes in ACT-R, including the noncompensatory recognition heuristic and various other popular noncompensatory and compensatory decision models. Additionally, to illustrate how such models can be tested, we conduct a model comparison, fitting the models to one experiment and letting them generalize to another. Behavioral data are best accounted for by race models. These race models embody the noncompensatory recognition heuristic and compensatory models as a race between competing processes, dissolving the dichotomy between existing decision models.

We make hundreds of decisions every day, many of them extremely quickly and without much explicit deliberation. This motivates two important open questions: What is the minimum time required to make choices with above chance accuracy? What is the impact of additional decision-making time on choice accuracy? We investigated these questions in four experiments in which subjects made binary food choices using saccadic or manual responses, under either “speed” or “accuracy” instructions. Subjects were able to make above chance decisions in as little as 313 ms, and choose their preferred food item in over 70% of trials at average speeds of 404 ms. Further, slowing down their responses by either asking them explicitly to be confident about their choices, or to respond with hand movements, generated about a 10% increase in accuracy. Together, these results suggest that consumers can make accurate every-day choices, akin to those made in a grocery store, at significantly faster speeds than previously reported.

Binary sequences are characterized by various features. Two of these characteristics—alternation rate and run length—have repeatedly been shown to influence judgments of randomness. The two characteristics, however, have usually been investigated separately, without controlling for the other feature. Because the two features are correlated but not identical, it seems critical to analyze their unique impact, as well as their interaction, so as to understand more clearly what influences judgments of randomness. To this end, two experiments on the perception of binary sequences orthogonally manipulated alternation rate and maximum run length (i.e., length of the longest run within the sequence). Results show that alternation rate consistently exerts a unique effect on judgments of randomness, but that the effect of alternation rate is contingent on the length of the longest run within the sequence. The effect of maximum run length was found to be small and less consistent. Together, these findings extend prior randomness research by integrating literature from the realms of perception, categorization, and prediction, as well as by showing the unique and joint effects of alternation rate and maximum run length on judgments of randomness.

The objective of this paper is to measure and compare the subjective time discounting of professional athletes and non-athletes. By using a questionnaire, we found higher subjective discounting for professional athletes than for non-athletes. We also found that the professional athletes’ win-orientation positively affected their present preferences. On the other hand, professional athletes’ play- orientation, which reflects their attitude towards the game itself, negatively affected their present preferences. No such effects were found in non-athletes. We argue that the “win-at-all-costs” competitive approach that leads athletes to sacrifice everything in order to win may cause (or reflect) their higher preference for the present.

Laboratory studies of choice and decision making among real monetary rewards typically use smaller real rewards than those common in real life. When laboratory rewards are large, they are almost always hypothetical. In applying laboratory results meaningfully to real-life situations, it is important to know the extent to which choices among hypothetical rewards correspond to choices among real rewards and whether variation of the magnitude of hypothetical rewards affects behavior in meaningful ways. The present study compared real and hypothetical monetary rewards in two experiments. In Experiment 1, participants played a temporal discounting game that incorporates the logic of a repeated prisoner’s-dilemma (PD) game versus tit-for-tat; choice of one alternative (“defection” in PD terminology) resulted in a small-immediate reward; choice of the other alternative (“cooperation” in PD terminology) resulted in a larger reward delayed until the following trial. The larger-delayed reward was greater for half of the groups than for the other half. Rewards also differed in type across groups: multiples of real nickels, hypothetical nickels, or hypothetical hundred-dollar bills. All groups significantly increased choice of the larger delayed reward over the 40 trials of the experiment. Over the last 10 trials, cooperation was significantly higher when the difference between larger and smaller hypothetical rewards was greater. Reward type (real or hypothetical) made no significant difference in cooperation on most measures. In Experiment 2, real and hypothetical rewards were compared in social discounting—the decrease in value to the giver of a reward as social distance increases to the receiver of the reward. Social discount rates were well described by a hyperbolic function. Discounting rates for real and hypothetical rewards did not significantly differ. These results add to the evidence that results of experiments with hypothetical rewards validly apply in everyday life.

This series of four studies was designed to clarify the underlying dimensionality and psychological well-being correlates of the major extant measures of the maximization tendency: the Maximization Scale (MS; Schwarz et al., 2002) and the Maximization Tendency Scale (MTS; Diab et al., 2008). Four studies using psychometric and factor analysis, item response theory (IRT), and an experimental manipulation all supported the following conclusions. The MS does measure three separate factors as postulated by its authors, but only two of them (alternative search and decisional difficulty) are correlated with each other and (negatively) with indices of well-being as postulated by the scale authors; high standards, the third factor, correlated strongly with the MTS, and both of these were strongly correlated with positive indices of well-being (optimism and happiness) and functioning (e.g., self-esteem and self-efficacy). The high standards subscale and MTS were related to analytical decision making style, while alternative search and decision difficulty were related to the regret-based decision making style and to procrastination. The IRT analysis indicated serious weaknesses in the measurement capabilities of existing scales, and the findings of the experimental study confirmed that alternative search and decision difficulty are related to the maximization tendency while high standards and MTS are not.Implications for further research and scale development are discussed.