{"pk":25710,"title":"The Attentional Learning Trap and How to Avoid It","subtitle":null,"abstract":"People often make repeated decisions from experience. In such\nscenarios, persistent biases of choice can develop, most notably\nthe “hot stove effect” (Denrell & March, 2001) in which\na prospect that is mistakenly believed to be negative is avoided\nand thus belief-correcting information is never obtained. In\nthe existing literature, the hot stove effect is generally thought\nof as developing through interaction with a single, stochastic\nprospect. Here, we show how a similar bias can develop due to\npeople’s tendency to selectively attend to a subset of features\nduring categorization. We first explore the bias through model\nsimulation, then report on an experiment in which we find evidence\nof a decisional bias linked to selective attention. Finally,\nwe use these computational models to design novel interventions\nto “de-bias” decision-makers, some of which may have\npractical application","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"decision-making"},{"word":"Categorization"},{"word":"selective attention"},{"word":"approach-avoid behavior"},{"word":"biases"},{"word":"learning traps"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5sc236bz","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Alexander","middle_name":"S","last_name":"Rich","name_suffix":"","institution":"New York University","department":""},{"first_name":"Todd","middle_name":"M","last_name":"Gureckis","name_suffix":"","institution":"New York University","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2015-01-01T13:00:00-05:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/25710/galley/15334/download/"}]}