SSP Forum: Ada Aka on Decision Making

The
Symbolic Systems Forum 
presents

Inferring Consideration Sets: A Computational Model of Naturalist Memory-Based Decision Making

Ada Aka
Graduate School of Business 

Monday, October 2, 2023 12;30-1:20 pm PDT
Margaret Jacks Hall (Bldg. 460), Room 126
In-person event, not recorded (see below for entry instructions if you are not an active Stanford affiliate)

ABSTRACT:

Memory plays a crucial role in everyday decision making and especially in consumer decision making. We propose a new computational framework to study how people retrieve and choose between hundreds of common choice items stored in memory during such decisions. Our approach combines established theories of consideration set formation and memory search, with techniques from natural language processing (which use text data to derive representations and associations for choice items) and recommender systems (which provide algorithms for capturing individual-specific preferences and retrieval tendencies for such items). We show that our framework successfully describes the items that are retrieved from memory even when memory processes are not directly observed. It also captures the effects of situational variables and individual differences on memory. Thus, it provides data-driven insights into the core cognitive mechanisms at play in memory-based decision making. We demonstrate the power of this approach in three sets of studies, each with several different types of naturalistic decision prompts. In doing so, we show how established theories in marketing and psychology can be combined with new computational techniques to explain complex everyday decisions.

NOTES ON ENTRY TO THE MEETING ROOM:

Entry to the building is open to anyone with an active Stanford ID via the card readers next to each door. If you do not have a Stanford ID, you can gain entry between 12:15 and 12:30pm ONLY by knocking on the exterior windows of room 126. These windows are to the left of the west side exterior door on the first floor of Margaret Jacks Hall, which faces the back east side of Building 420. Please do not knock on these windows after 12:30pm when the talk has started. We will not be able to come out and open the door for you at that point.