Information-Constrained Dynamic Models of Choice Behavior

这个项目将探索经济背景下人类选择行为背后的认知过程模型。要探索的模型允许偏离完全知情的最佳选择。他们不会假设行为仅仅是“非理性的”，而是会解释偏离最优决策的原因是(通常是有意识的)选择算法的使用，这些算法非常适合于实现决策者的目标。选择算法也不需要更大的信息处理能力。如果成功，这项研究将展示心理学、视觉科学和神经科学等其他学科的研究成果如何整合到经济分析中，从而对经济理论的发展产生广泛影响。如果对政策激励的准确感知改变了个人的行为，它也应该对经济政策的设计产生广泛的影响。该项目将探索拟议的理论在各种背景下解释经济选择异常的能力。要考虑的应用包括：作为观察到的选择的随机性来源的处理错误；对不断变化的市场状况的行为调整的延迟，以及对不同类型的消息反应的不同延迟程度；由于一些交易员对当前市场状况的疏忽导致的资产价格过度波动；“聚焦错觉”，其中替代方案的某些属性在决定选择方面具有不成比例的影响；消费者选择的背景效应，例如允许通过在呈现给消费者的集合中添加额外的替代方案来操纵购买行为的影响；以及关于与预期效用最大化理论不一致的风险结果的选择方面。这种方法与以前对这些行为方面的处理不同，它寻求对这些方面进行更统一的解释，并为这些行为模式提供功能性解释，而不仅仅是记录“偏见”。有待探索的理论对“理性注意力不集中”理论施加了额外的限制(西姆斯，2003,2010)。将特别注意由于连续证据的积累而产生的动态决策过程，其中每一项证据对最佳行动方针只有些许信息，并将特别注意在这一动态过程中对选择情况的不同方面的最佳选择。所提出的对信息处理的限制是认知过程的描述性(非规范性)模型的共同特征，这些模型涉及知觉判断和基于价值的决策。这些经验观察不仅包括在特定决策问题中做出特定选择或判断的频率，还包括提供导致这些选择的认知过程的证据的其他测量，如反应时间和神经激活测量。这项拟议的研究将把基于信息约束的标准模型的预测与用于测试决策描述性模型的实验证据进行比较。

This project will explore models of the cognitive processes underlying human choice behavior in economic contexts. The models to be explored allow for departures from fully-informed optimal choice. Rather than positing that behavior is simply "irrational," they will explain departures from optimal decision-making as resulting from the (generally pre-conscious) use of choice algorithms that are well-suited to mostly achieving decision makers' objectives. The choice algoritms also would not require greater information-processing capacity. If successful, the research will have broad implications for the development of economic theory by showing how research findings in other disciplines, such as psychology, vision science and neuroscience, can be integrated into economic analysis. It should also have broad implications for the design of economic policies, if accurate perception of the incentives of policies changes individuals' behavior.The project will explore the ability of the proposed theory to explain anomalies of economic choice in a variety of contexts. Applications to be considered include processing errors as a source of randomness in observed choices; delays in the adjustment of behavior to changing market conditions and differential degrees of delay in the response to differing types of news; excess volatility of asset prices as a result of inattentiveness on the part of some traders to current market conditions; "focusing illusions" in which certain attributes of alternatives are disproportionately influential in determining choice; context effects in consumer choice, such as those that allow manipulation of purchasing behavior by the addition of additional alternatives to the set with which consumers are presented; and aspects of choice with regard to risky outcomes that are inconsistent with the theory of expected utility maximization. The approach to be pursued differs from previous treatments of these aspects of behavior by seeking a more unified explanation for them, and providing functional explanations for such patterns of behavior rather than merely documenting "biases." The theory to beexplored imposes additional constraints on the theory of "rational inattention" (Sims, 2003, 2010). Particular attention will be given to the dynamic processes of decision-making as a result of accumulation of successive pieces of evidence, each of which is only slightly informative as to best course of action, and to the optimal selection of attention to different aspects of the choice situation in the course of such a dynamic process. The constraints on information processing that are proposed are ones that are common features of descriptive (non-normative) models of cognitive processes involved in both perceptual judgments and value-based decisionmaking. The empirical observations on which these are based include not only the frequencies with which particular choices or judgments are made in particular decision problems, but other measurements that provide evidence about the cognitive processes giving rise to these choices, such as reaction times and measures of neural activation. The proposed research will compare the predictions of normative models based on information constraints with experimental evidence of the kind used to test descriptive models of decision making.