Adam Smith Business School

Professor Jan Engelmann, University of Amsterdam

"Distinguishing agent-specific and decision-specific channels of attention in risky decision-making."
Wednesday, 25 October. 3 pm
Online

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Abstract

Economists have become increasingly interested in using attention to explain behavioral patterns both on the micro and macro levels. This has resulted in several disparate theoretical approaches. Some, like rational inattention, assume a “top-down” model of executive optimization. Others, like salience theory, assume a “bottom-up” influence where attention is driven by contextual factors. This distinction is fundamental for the economic implications of attention, but so far there is little understanding of their relative importance. I will discuss results from recent eye-tracking work in the context of risky decisions. Importantly, we distinguish between the impact of agent-specific attention and decision-specific variation in attention, which parallel the distinction between top-down and bottom-up attention that is commonly made in cognitive science. We verify our framework in a number of experimental contexts: (1) an eye-tracking experiment on risky choice; (2) a follow-up experiment that determined the causal influences of attention on risky choice; and (3) a recent application in patients with gambling disorder (GD). Jointly, our results underline the utility of differentiating between agent-specific attention and decision-specific variation in attention in identifying the underlying cognitive mechanisms involved in economic choice. Future eye-tracking work will benefit from using this simple approach that distinguishes between two channels of attention to improve model fit.

Bio

Jan B. Engelmann is Professor of Neuroeconomics at the Center for Research in Experimental Economics and political Decision Making (CREED) at the Amsterdam School of Economics. He is a Tinbergen Research Fellow and member of the board for Amsterdam Brain and Cognition (ABC). His research and teaching focuses on the neurobiology of social and economic decision-making, and how cognitive and emotional processes support our decisions. Jan studied Experimental Psychology at the University of St. Andrews (MA) and Brown University (PhD). Prior to coming to CREED, Jan worked with Economists and Neuroscientists at Emory University and the University of Zurich. Jan has received a number of grants and awards including an ABC Project Grant, a Radboud Excellence Fellowship, the John Dickhaut Memorial Grant from the Society for Neuroeconomics, the Dissertation Research Award from the American Psychological Association and the Student Research Grant from the Association for Psychological Science. His work is highly interdisciplinary and has been published across various fields including Neuroscience, Psychology, Psychiatry and Economics in journals such as the Journal of Neuroscience, Nature Neuroscience, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Psychological Medicine and the American Economic Review.

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First published: 14 September 2023