Survey of decision field theory

This article summarizes the cumulative progress of a cognitive-dynamical approach to decision making and preferential choice called decision field theory. This review includes applications to (a) binary decisions among risky and uncertain actions, (b) multi-attribute preferential choice, (c) multi-alternative preferential choice, and (d) certainty equivalents such as prices. The theory provides natural explanations for violations of choice principles including strong stochastic transitivity, independence of irrelevant alternatives, and regularity. The theory also accounts for the relation between choice and decision time, preference reversals between choice and certainty equivalents, and preference reversals under time pressure. Comparisons with other dynamic models of decision-making and other random utility models of preference are discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.