The Role of Salience in Multialternative Multiattribute Choice

Attention plays a central role in multi-alternative multiat- tribute decision-making but the cognitive mechanisms for it are elusive (Yang & Krajbich, 2023; Molter, Thomas, Huet- tel, Heekeren, & Mohr, 2022; Trueblood, 2022). In this project, we explored the role of bottom-up attention by manipulating the salience of different options in a multi-alternative, multi-attribute choice display. Behaviorally, we observed that salience interacts with choice, where the salient option is selected more often, especially in quick decisions. Using computational modeling, we tested two different hypotheses for how salience impacts decision-making for different individuals. We tested (i) if salience created an initial bias in the decision-making process, and (ii) if salience impacted the comparisons that are made during the decision-making process. We find that there are large individual differences in the mechanism through which salience impacts choice. For many individuals, there was no impact of salience. However, for a sizable minority, salience created an initial boost in selecting the salient option. We do not find strong evidence for the impact of salience in the comparison process. In exploratory analyses, we observe that the impact of salience in decision-making is correlated with thinking styles. Our results indicate that salience-driven attention might impact decision-making in different ways for individuals.