Abstract:

Process tracing techniques facilitate tracing of cognitive process behind decision-making behaviors, thereby clarifying “how people make decisions.” The eye-tracking technique is a type of process tracing technique with the following advantages: 1) does not interfere with the decision-making process, 2) applicable in different experimental conditions for different samples, and 3) can provide informative process data. Eye-tracking techniques are useful in testing or comparing different decision-making models. These techniques aid researchers in the following tasks: assessing the different process hypotheses of both compensatory and non-compensatory theories in risk decision-making fields, determining different cognitive processes between multiple-play decision and single-play decision, and comparing and assessing different predictions of the “cancellation-and-focus model” and “equate-to-differentiate model” on how common features affect multiple-attribute decisions.

Key words: decision process tracing techniques, eye-tracking, compensatory theories, non-compensatory theories, multiple-play decisions, single-play decisions, cancellation-and-focus model, equate-to-differentiate model