Contingent Decision Behavior: A Review and Discussion of Issues.

Abstract : A question of great concern in decision research is the extent to which the strategies used by an individual in making a judgment or choice are invariant across task environments. This paper reviews research showing that information processing in decision making, as in other areas of cognition, is highly contingent upon the demands of the task. Theoretical frameworks for handling task and context effect are explored: (1) Cost/benefit principles; (2) Perceptual processes; and (3) Adaptive production systems. Both the cost/benefit and perceptual frameworks are shown to have strong empirical support. Both frameworks, however, also have unresolved conceptual problems that are discussed. The adaptive production system framework has less direct support, but has the desirable property that it contains elements of both of the other frameworks. The question of how the different theoretical frameworks might be integrated is explored. (Author)