Tracking decision makers under uncertainty

Eye tracking is used to investigate the procedures used in choice problems between two lotteries. Eye movement patterns in problems where the deliberation process is clearly identified are used to make inferences in problems where the deliberation process is less straightforward. The data provide little support for the hypothesis that decision makers use exclusively an expected utility type of calculation. Instead eye patterns indicate that decision makers often compare prizes and probabilities separately. This is particularly true when the calculations involved in comparing the lotteries are complicated. Key-words: Decision Making, Expected Utility, Eye tracking, Neuroeconomics, Similarity. Acknowledgements We wish to thank Ayala Arad, Paul Glimcher, Ori Heffetz, Rosemarie Nagel, Doron Ravid and Dan Zeltzer for their valuable comments. We acknowledge support from the Israeli Science Foundation (grant 259/08).