Speed-accuracy tradeoffs in decision making: Perception shifts and goal activation bias decision thresholds

A fundamental aspect of decision making is the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT): slower decisions tend to be more accurate, but since time is a scarce resource people prefer to conclude decisions more quickly. The current research adds to the SAT literature by documenting two previously unrecognized influences on the SAT: perception shifts and goal activation. Decision makers' perceptions of what constitutes a fast or a slow decision, and what constitutes an accurate or inaccurate decision, are based on prior experience, and these perceptions influence decision speed. Similarly, previous experience in a decision context associates the context with a particular decision goal. Thus, in later decisions the decision context will activate this goal, and thereby influence decision speed. Both of these mechanisms contribute to a specific decision bias: decision speeds are biased toward original decision speeds in a decision context. Four experiments provide evidence for the bias and the two contributing mechanisms.