Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions

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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Vidal, Alice, Soto-Faraco, Salvador, 1970-, Moreno Bote, Rubén
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:10230/55320
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/55320
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76985
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Neurociències--Presa de decisions
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spelling Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisionsVidal, AliceSoto-Faraco, Salvador, 1970-Moreno Bote, RubénNeurociències--Presa de decisionsMany 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 low budget capacity participants sample as many suppliers as possible, and thus prefer breadth, whereas at high capacities participants sample just a few chosen alternatives in depth, and intentionally ignore the rest. The number of alternatives sampled increases with capacity following a power law with an exponent close to 3/4. In richer environments, where good outcomes are more likely, humans further favour depth. Participants deviate from optimality and tend to allocate capacity amongst the selected alternatives more homogeneously than it would be optimal, but the impact on the outcome is small. Overall, our results undercover a rich phenomenology of closeto-optimal behaviour and biases in complex choices.This work is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI, Ref: 55008742), MINECO (Spain; BFU2017-85936-P), ICREA Academia (2016) and Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Ref: PID2020-114196GB-I00/AEI) to RM-B. SS-. is funded by Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Ref: PID2019-108531GB-I00 AEI/FEDER) and the FEDER/ERDF Operative Programme for Catalunya 2014-2020. AV is supported by a FI fellowship from the AGAUR (2019FI_B 00302).eLife202320232022info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/55320http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76985reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunyainstname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)IngléseLife. 2022;11:e76985.https://osf.io/kdbqs/info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2019-108531GB-I00info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/BFU2017-85936-Pinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2020-114196GB-I00© 2022 Vidal et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:recercat.cat:10230/553202026-05-29T05:05:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
title Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
spellingShingle Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
Vidal, Alice
Neurociències--Presa de decisions
title_short Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
title_full Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
title_fullStr Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
title_full_unstemmed Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
title_sort Balance between breadth and depth in human many-alternative decisions
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Vidal, Alice
Soto-Faraco, Salvador, 1970-
Moreno Bote, Rubén
author Vidal, Alice
author_facet Vidal, Alice
Soto-Faraco, Salvador, 1970-
Moreno Bote, Rubén
author_role author
author2 Soto-Faraco, Salvador, 1970-
Moreno Bote, Rubén
author2_role author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Neurociències--Presa de decisions
topic Neurociències--Presa de decisions
description 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 low budget capacity participants sample as many suppliers as possible, and thus prefer breadth, whereas at high capacities participants sample just a few chosen alternatives in depth, and intentionally ignore the rest. The number of alternatives sampled increases with capacity following a power law with an exponent close to 3/4. In richer environments, where good outcomes are more likely, humans further favour depth. Participants deviate from optimality and tend to allocate capacity amongst the selected alternatives more homogeneously than it would be optimal, but the impact on the outcome is small. Overall, our results undercover a rich phenomenology of closeto-optimal behaviour and biases in complex choices.
publishDate 2022
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2022
2023
2023
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/55320
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76985
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/55320
http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.76985
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv eLife. 2022;11:e76985.
https://osf.io/kdbqs/
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2019-108531GB-I00
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/BFU2017-85936-P
info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/2PE/PID2020-114196GB-I00
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv eLife
publisher.none.fl_str_mv eLife
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
instname:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
instname_str Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
reponame_str Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
collection Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
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