Impacts of Visualizations on Decoy Effects

The decoy effect is a well-known, intriguing decision-making bias that is often exploited by marketing practitioners to steer consumers towards a desired purchase outcome. It demonstrates that an inclusion of an alternative in the choice set can alter one’s preference among the other choices. Although this decoy effect has been universally observed in the real world and also studied by many economists and psychologists, little is known about how to mitigate the decoy effect and help consumers make informed decisions. In this study, we conducted two experiments: a quantitative experiment with crowdsourcing and a qualitative interview study—first, the crowdsourcing experiment to see if visual interfaces can help alleviate this cognitive bias. Four types of visualizations, one-sided bar chart, two-sided bar charts, scatterplots, and parallel-coordinate plots, were evaluated with four different types of scenarios. The results demonstrated that the two types of bar charts were effective in decreasing the decoy effect. Second, we conducted a semi-structured interview to gain a deeper understanding of the decision-making strategies while making a choice. We believe that the results have an implication on showing how visualizations can have an impact on the decision-making process in our everyday life.

Cognitive Biases in Building Energy Decisions

Research on sustainability in the building sector currently focuses mainly on technical solutions while little attention is given to how behaviour influences the uptake of these solutions. Bounded rationality may have a significant impact on the effective implementation of more sustainable technologies that are already available. However, empirical evidence on the effects of bounded rationality in the building sector, such as cognitive biases, is still lacking. Here, we present an empirical investigation of four cognitive biases in the building environment, namely the framing, anchor, default, and decoy effect. For that, energy-related decisions situations were presented to approximately 270 participants in an online survey. Our results show that awareness of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings can be raised through framing that the willingness to pay more for an energy-efficient home can be increased by presenting it as default, and that the choices can be shifted towards more energy-efficient appliances by using a decoy. The hypothesis that anchoring increases the willingness to pay more for the installation of a solar system could not be supported. These findings decrease the lack of empirical data on cognitive biases in the context of buildings and further indicate the potential of choice architecture in the building environment. The influence of cognitive biases in energy-related decisions should be used to increase the adaptation of sustainable technologies.

Efek Pemikatan (Attraction Effect) dan Bias Status Quo Sebuah Eksperimen dalam Perilaku Pengambilan Keputusan Portofolio Keuangan

The reference dependent preference plays a significant role in individual choice behavior. Introducing a third option which is asymmetrical dominated to the dominating option can influence one’s decision. The status quo, endowment and attraction or decoy effect are the main noises. Such noises are proof to counter the rational choice theory. This paper tries to observe the status quo and decoy effect. Existence of those two effects are examined in experimental observation with 32 respondents. Questionnaires are set for respondents to dig information about how their answers contain choices. Two and three varies alternatives are presented to see respondent choice feedback when a third inferior alternative is available. The result shows respondent tendency to switch options when status quo becomes a reference point.

Digestion, fermentation, and pathogen anti-adhesive properties of the hMO-mimic di-fucosyl-β-cyclodextrin

ScopeHuman milk is widely acknowledged as the best food for infants, and that is not just because of nutritional features. Human milk also contains a plethora of bioactive molecules, including a large set of human milk oligosaccharides (hMOs). Especially fucosylated hMOs have received attention for their anti-adhesive effects on pathogens by preventing attachment to the intestinal wall. Because hMOs are generally challenging to produce in sufficient quantities to study and ultimately apply in (medical) infant formula, hMO mimics are interesting compounds to produce and evaluate for their biological effects.Methods and resultsWe investigated the digestion, fermentation, and pathogen anti-adhesive capacity of the novel hMO mimic di-fucosyl-β-cyclodextrin (DFβCD). We establish that DFβCD is not digested by α-amylase and also resists fermentation by the microbiota from a 9 month-old infant. In addition, we reveal that DFβCD blocks adhesion of enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) to Caco-2 cells, especially when DFβCD is pre-incubated with ETEC prior to addition to the Caco-2 cells.ConclusionOur results suggests that DFβCD functions through a decoy effect. We expect that our results inspire the generation and biological evaluation of other fucosylated hMOs and mimics, to obtain a comprehensive overview of the anti-adhesive power of fucosylated glycans.