Attention in preferential choice

Theoretical discussions and models of preferential choice have significantly improved our understanding of decision making over the past few decades. Although attention is a key cognitive mechanism that is often used in these theoretical discussions, formal treatment of attention is quite naïve. We bring to light how attention has been used explicitly and implicitly to conceptualize some generic modes of thought followed by a discussion of results from cognitive psychology on the interaction between attention and decision making. In the process, we discuss issues with theorizations regarding the role of attention. We suggest treating attention as a nonunitary mechanism, the possibility of incorporating subsampling as a generic heuristic based on attentional mechanisms and the necessity to consider the role of attentional scope in addition to the allocation of attention, that is, conceptualized in terms of resources. These discussions also bear upon the conceptual and formal treatment of preferential choice in particular and the psychology of decision making in general. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.