Dynamic models of choice typically describe the decision-making process in terms of the degree or balance of support for available response options. However, these alternative-specific representations of support are liable to fail when the available options change during the course of a decision. We suggest that people may use alternative-general representations, where stimulus feature information-rather than option-specific support-is accumulated over time and mapped onto support for available options as they appear. We tested alternative-specific and alternative-general models of choice in two perceptual experiments where the available options could change during a trial. In the first study, we showed that changing the choice options partway through a trial resulted in no substantial difference in performance relative to a condition where the final options were always onscreen. This was supported by a quantitative model comparison that strongly favored an alternative-general (geometric) model over two alternative-specific models (diffusion and racing accumulator models). In the second study, the stimulus primed specific unavailable responses to test whether irrelevant support for unavailable options was integrated into the decision process. This study elicited a pattern of accuracy that could not have occurred unless participants accumulated support for options that were not yet available. Together, these experiments and modeling results indicate that the majority of participants rely on alternative-general representations of evidence during dynamic decisions among options that can change over time. Future work on decision behavior and its neural antecedents should explore the predictions of these alternative-general theories of choice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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不断变化的选择方案之间的决策揭示了证据的选项一般表示。


选择的动态模型通常根据可用响应选项的支持程度或平衡来描述决策过程。然而，当可用选项在决策过程中发生变化时，这些特定于替代方案的支持表示很可能会失败。我们建议人们可以使用替代一般表示，其中刺激特征信息（而不是特定于选项的支持）随着时间的推移而积累，并映射到对出现的可用选项的支持。我们在两个感知实验中测试了特定替代模型和一般替代模型的选择，其中可用选项可能会在试验期间发生变化。在第一项研究中，我们表明，与最终选项始终显示在屏幕上的情况相比，在试验中途更改选择选项不会导致性能出现实质性差异。这得到了定量模型比较的支持，该比较强烈支持替代通用（几何）模型而不是两个替代特定模型（扩散和赛车累加器模型）。在第二项研究中，刺激引发了特定的不可用反应，以测试对不可用选项的不相关支持是否已纳入决策过程。这项研究得出了一种准确的模式，除非参与者积累了对尚不可用的选项的支持，否则这种模式不可能出现。总之，这些实验和建模结果表明，大多数参与者在对可能随时间变化的选项进行动态决策时依赖于证据的替代一般表示。未来关于决策行为及其神经前因的工作应该探索这些替代一般选择理论的预测。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。