The Mechanisms of Attention and Decision-Making: A Neuroscience-Informed Heuristic Framework for the Design of Digital Choice Architectures
Journal
Information Systems and Neuroscience
ISSN
2195-4968
Type
book section
Date Issued
2025
Author(s)
Abstract
The information systems (IS) literature has already appreciated that human decisions often deviate from what would be considered ‘rational’. However, the complex role of attention during decision-making has sparked less discussion. Here, we present our ongoing work on a heuristic framework that combines recent computational theoretical accounts from neuroeconomics on an active role of attention in reward anticipation and evidence accumulation with neurobiologically plausible models of attentional control. We discuss how seemingly unrelated behavioral phenomena can arise from a set of attentional processes in the light of this framework. Furthermore, we point out how researchers and practitioners may use our model to design more dynamic digital choice architectures–i.e., using real-time data from eye-tracking or electroencephalography (EEG)–and to develop digital training interventions targeting enduring changes in attentional control to eventually empower individuals to make healthier or more sustainable decisions.
Publisher
Springer Nature Switzerland