Journal of Psychological Abnormalities

The Importance of Quantitative Versus Qualitative Visual Qualities in Preferential Attraction Effects Using Visual Stimuli

Jennifer Richards^{* *}Correspondence: Jennifer Richards, Department of Medical Science, Bermuda College, Paget Parish, Bermuda, Email:

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Providing a subpar and seldom chosen third (decoy) alternative to decision makers faced with a choice between two options has the following contradictory effect: It boosts the choice share of the alternative that most closely resembles the decoy. This attraction effect is strong when the alternatives are numerical, but it is unusual in humans when the options are visual, despite the fact that it happens in animals. We investigated two types of visual qualities based on psychophysics: Quantitative and qualitative. Magnitudes can be seen as quantitative visual qualities (for example, various bottle capacities). But, qualitative visual features (such as distinct hues) do not have a magnitude scale. One may see that the capacity of one bottle is twice that of another, but not that the hue of a green bottle is twice that of a red one.

A decision pattern opposing to an attraction effect was seen when qualitative visual stimuli were presented. That is, providing a third alternative identical to a target lowered the target's choice share. One of two things may have happened. Secondly, if decision makers move their preference from the target to the rival while considering the third alternative as a decoy, a repulsion effect may emerge (i.e., an inferior option). Second, if decision makers transfer their preference from the target to the third option while perceiving it as a viable alternative to the target, a similarity effect may develop.

We were interested in the influence of decoys in this study; therefore we employed the target versus decoy choice task to keep only those individuals who saw the third option as a decoy. If this approach functioned as anticipated, our findings would indicate a repellent effect. If, on the other hand, it kept some participants who saw the third choice as a feasible alternative to the aim, as is possible, a similarity effect might explain our findings. To ensure that our participants saw the third option as a decoy, experiments were designed to provide extremely few decoy options in the main task.

We looked at preference selections amongst photographs of different items. When it came to quantitative visual features, attraction effects appeared, but when it came to qualitative visual attributes, they reversed. Until date, there has been no evidence that the quantitative vs. qualitative visual characteristic type modifies the attraction impact.

Our discoveries of significant attraction effects with quantitative visual features indicate that preferred attraction effects are more common with visual stimuli. This is significant since the existence of preferred visual attraction effects has been disputed. We add to the discussion by demonstrating that the visual vs. numerical distinction is not a mental boundary requirement for the attraction effect.

Our account is consistent with the loss of the attraction effect with qualitative visual stimuli. Additionally, our findings appear to contradict three viable alternative explanations. For starters, attraction effects can be reversed when the target is favoured. Experiments did, however, show a repelling effect with a disadvantaged target. Second, certain presentation orders may reverse preferred attraction effects, similar to perceptual attraction effect reversals. We can rule this out since each configuration exhibited both attraction and repulsion effects in a theory-consistent manner throughout our studies. Finally, when participants see the decoy as competing with the object rather than inferior to it, attraction effects might diminish. In Experiments, only few people picked the decoy, indicating that the decoy is inferior.

The attraction effect was detected across a variety of distinct visual stimuli with various sorts of quantitative qualities, raising the chance that these findings would transfer to additional visual stimuli with quantitative visual attributes. Although our focus was on visual characteristics, our reasoning may be applicable to nonvisual perceptual attributes such as loudness and temperature (quantitative perceptual attributes perceived by hearing and touch, respectively) and food flavour qualities (e.g., sweet vs. sour, which are qualitative perceptual attributes). Further study will be required to test our theory with nonvisual perceptual cues. Furthermore, we mostly recruited European and American citizens using internet recruiting sites, and they engaged entirely online. Future study might determine if our findings apply to other respondent demographics and situations, such as the field.

Preferential repulsion effects are as intriguing as attraction effects; yet, they have been detected relatively seldom and, to our knowledge, only with quantitative visual features. Discovering preference repulsion effects with qualitative visual features thus offers up new study options in the future. We have simply speculated on the probable process, implying that the decoy and target may be viewed as two instances of the same category, resulting in their features being assimilated towards the category norm.