title: Swayed by the music: sampling bias towards musical preference distinguishes like from dislike decisions.
abstract: This study investigated the interaction between sampling behavior and preference formation underlying subjective decision making for like and dislike decisions. Two-alternative forced-choice tasks were used with closely-matched musical excerpts and the participants were free to listen and re-listen, i.e. to sample and resample each excerpt, until they reached a decision. We predicted that for decisions involving resampling, a sampling bias would be observed before the moment of conscious decision for the like decision only. The results indeed showed a gradually increasing sampling bias favouring the choice (73%) before the moment of overt response for like decisions. Such a bias was absent for dislike decisions. Furthermore, the participants reported stronger relative preferences for like decisions as compared to dislike decisions. This study demonstrated distinct differences in preference formation between like and dislike decisions, both in the implicit orienting/sampling processes prior to the conscious decision and in the subjective evaluation afterwards.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Goldsmiths, University of London, London SE14 6NW, UK.
authors.forename: Job P
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Lindsen
authors.forename: Gurpreet
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moonga
authors.forename: Shinsuke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shimojo
authors.forename: Joydeep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bhattacharya
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009146:Music / Q000523:psychology*; D015983:Selection Bias