The effects of task demands and cognitive resources on information acquisition in decision making

Abstract

The Effort-Accuracy framework (E-Af) of decision making predicts that as computational demands of a decision increase and supersede cognitive resources, the decision maker adopts increasingly cognitively-economical strategies of information processing (Payne, Bettman and Johnson, 1993).  However, these predictions have not been systematically tested, and the framework does not sufficiently distinguish between the effects of different sources of task demand (e.g. increased decision complexity vs. increased decision difficulty). This research program aimed to explore the predictions of the E-Af, through manipulating the balance between task demands and the cognitive resources of the decision maker.  Specifically, it examined the effects of increasing objective levels of task demand, through both increased difficulty and complexity, on the information acquisition process underlying decision making in groups that represent three levels of cognitive resources: diminished (older adults), cognitively-optimal (young adults), and enhanced (experts).  The results presented in this thesis provide broad support for the predictions of the E-Af.  All decision makers adopted more cognitively-economical decision strategies as task demand increased, with the cognitively-diminished group demonstrating the most, and the cognitively-enhanced group demonstrating the least, cognitive economy.  The results also suggest that both demand source and decision domain (the topic of the decision) influence the information acquisition process, and as such must be considered as factors in future decision making research.  In addition, this thesis provides an insight into both older adult and expert decision making.

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