Technical Report #242
Survey of Decision Field Theory
Jerome R. Busemeyer & Adele Diederich
Abstract
This article summarizes the cumulative progress of a cognitive - dynamical
approach to decision making and preferential choice called decision field theory. This
review includes applications to (a) binary decisions among risky and uncertain actions,
(b) multi-attribute preferential choice, (c) multi-alternative preferential choice, and (d)
certainty equivalents such as prices. The theory provides natural explanations for
violations of choice principles including strong stochastic transitivity, independence of
irrelevant alternatives, and regularity. The theory also accounts for the relation between
choice and decision time, preference reversals between choice and certainty equivalents,
and preference reversals under time pressure. Comparisons with other dynamic models of
decision-making and other random utility models of preference are discussed.
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