Heuristics and Criterion Setting during Selective Encoding in Visual Decision-Making: Evidence from Eye Movements.

When making a decision, people spend longer looking at the option they ultimately choose compared other options-termed the gaze bias effect-even during their first encounter with the options (Glaholt & Reingold, 2009a, 2009b; Schotter, Berry, McKenzie & Rayner, 2010). Schotter et al. (2010) suggested that this is because people selectively encode decision-relevant information about the options, on-line during the first encounter with them. To extend their findings and test this claim, we recorded subjects' eye movements as they made judgments about pairs of images (i.e., which one was taken more recently or which one was taken longer ago). We manipulated whether both images were presented in the same color content (e.g., both in color or both in black-and-white) or whether they differed in color content and the extent to which color content was a reliable cue to relative recentness of the images. We found that the magnitude of the gaze bias effect decreased when the color content cue was not reliable during the first encounter with the images, but no modulation of the gaze bias effect in remaining time on the trial. These data suggest people do selectively encode decision-relevant information on-line.