Both insufficient adjustment and selective accessibility exist in the anchoring effect: evidence from eye dynamics in estimation tasks

Abstract

Extant studies on the underlying mechanism of the anchoring effect are almost based solely on the decisions people make and the findings remain controversial. Focusing on the decision process, this research examined how an individual arrives at his decisions by introducing the methods of eye-tracking and pupillometry into the research on the anchoring effect for the first time. Here, we found in two experiments: in comparison with no anchor situation, the presence of an anchor caused shorter response time, larger pupil size, lower blink frequency, higher saccade frequency, larger amplitude, and shorter duration in the stimuli area. It appeared that both insufficient adjustment and selective accessibility exist in the anchoring effect. The amounts of adjustment based on the anchor value in the participants’ decisions were proportional to the size of the deviation of the anchor value from the true value and were inversely proportional to their confidence level in estimation.

Keywords: Anchoring Effect, Decision-making, Visual Search, Eye Dynamics

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1007297