Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions.

ABSTRACT: Many everyday life decisions require allocating finite resources, such as attention or time, to examine multiple available options, like choosing a food supplier online. In cases like these, resources can be spread across many options (breadth) or focused on a few of them (depth). Whilst theoretical work has described how finite resources should be allocated to maximize utility in these problems, evidence about how humans balance breadth and depth is currently lacking. We introduce a novel experimental paradigm where humans make a many-alternative decision under finite resources. In an imaginary scenario, participants allocate a finite budget to sample amongst multiple apricot suppliers in order to estimate the quality of their fruits, and ultimately choose the best one. We found that at l

SUBMITTER: Vidal A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9578699 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature