It's Not What You See but How You See It: Using Eye-Tracking to Study the Risky Decision-Making Process

This study examines the decision-making process used by individuals when choosing between risky alternatives by examining eye movement patterns recorded during a lottery choice experiment. We use eye-tracking data to explore whether eye movement patterns are associated with the choices individuals make. We find that individuals whose decisions are more consistent with expected value maximization tend to collect information in a manner consistent with sequentially calculating the expected value of each gamble. Further, we find that people who do not collect information in this manner are more likely to choose the safer of two lotteries.