The gradual nature of economic errors
研究发现，在客观已知最优选择的经济任务中，随着选项预期价值接近，人们的错误率和反应时间会逐渐增加，表明认知辨别中的渐进效应同样存在于经济决策中。
Overwhelming evidence from the cognitive sciences shows that, in simple discrimination tasks (determining what is louder, longer, brighter, or even which number is larger) humans make more mistakes and decide more slowly when the stimuli are closer along the relevant scale. We investigate to what extent these effects are relevant for economic decisions in a setting where optimal choices are objectively known (and independent of attitudes toward risk). We find that, even for tasks with objectively-correct answers, error rates and response times increase gradually as expected values become closer. Differences in payoff-independent numerical magnitudes also play a role, which however only becomes clear when one accounts for expected values. We conclude that the gradual effects on choice found in cognitive discrimination paradigms are very much present in economic choices, and depend on economic as well as perceptual variables.