Speed-accuracy tradeoffs in decision making: Perception shifts and goal activation bias decision thresholds.

ABSTRACT

A fundamental aspect of decision making is the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) slower decisions tend to be more accurate, but because time is a scarce resource people prefer to conclude decisions more quickly. The current research adds to the SAT literature by documenting two previously unrecognized influences on the SAT perception shifts and goal activation. Decision makers' perceptions of what constitutes a fast or a slow decision, and what constitutes an accurate or inaccurate decision, are based on prior experience, and these perceptions influence decision speed. Similarly, previous experience in a decision context associates the context with a particular decision goal. Thus, in later decisions the decision context will activate this goal, and influence decision speed. Both of these mechanisms contribute to a specific decision bias decision speeds are biased toward original decision speeds in a decision context. Four experiments provide evidence for the bias and the two contributing mechanisms. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).