Abstract

This study was conducted to test the task-related effects on decision making processes. Experiment la and lb were intended to study whether or not the decision steps operate as assumed in the dominance structure model in a simple task. As a result, the importance of dominant attributes in the selected alternative was bolstered more strongly in a post-decision than in a pre-decision, however, the importance of the dominant attributes in the competitive ones were de-emphasized much more low. The result on the attractiveness evaluation of attribute values showed that the evaluation of attractiveness of attribute values in the competitive ones was not changed in the process of decision making, however, the attractiveness of attribute values in the selected one was bolstered more strongly. But, the differences between a simple task and a complex task were not found in the pre- and post-rate of interaltematives search, the importance of attributes, and the attraction evaluation of attribute values. The result suggests that the decision even in a simple task can be also made via the stages assumed in the dominance search model. In Experiment 2, the effects of information presentation format on the way of combining information in the post-stage of decision making were investigated. The result showed that subjects used the noncompensatory rules even in the display condition that the compensatory rules can be employed easily in the post-stage. Thus, it seems that the compensatory rules are not used frequently in the decision making process, regardless of the information presentation format. Some possible limits and the future directions of the present research were discussed.