Transient value refinements during deliberation facilitate choice.

Decision, Vol 11(2), Apr 2024, 303-319; doi:10.1037/dec0000215

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Decision on Aug 03 2023 (see record 2023-95270-001). In the original article, the error bars were defined incorrectly in the notes for Figures 2 and 3. The notes should have stated, “Error bars represent fixed effects regression estimates +/− standard errors.” All versions of this article have been corrected.] After deciding among options, decision-makers tend to increase their evaluations of the chosen options and decrease their evaluations of the rejected options, resulting in a spreading of alternatives (SoA). There has been a long-standing debate as to whether SoA results from postchoice cognitive dissonance reduction or self-consistency augmentation, or whether it is related to processes that are instrumental in reaching a decision (or both). Here, we introduce a novel procedure that measures SoA implicitly during the process of subjective value-based decision-making. During the choice task, participants simultaneously provided value ratings for both options on offer on each trial, but before explicitly reporting their choices. The results clearly demonstrate that SoA does not occur only after choices have been reported. Furthermore, SoA seems to be instrumental to the choice process: It is associated with higher choice consistency, higher confidence, and lower response time. The SoA generated during choice deliberation is partially transient in nature, regressing toward baseline shortly afterward, but lingering at an intermediate level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

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