COMPLEX DECISION-MAKING COULD BE INDUCED BY PRIMING BUT PREVENTED BY TOP-DOWN MODULATION

TOMAS ALVES SALGUEIRO; AYELÉN CARAMÉS; EMILIO RECART; PABLO NICOLÁS FERNÁNDEZ LARROSA

Congreso; 11th IBRO World Congress of Neuroscience; 2023

Some decision-making (DM) processes require quick responses, while complex decisions require more cognitive engagement. Under the hypothesis that repeated exposure to a stimulus (repetition priming) or its association with an emotional valence (emotional priming) could drive DM, 8 online experiments were conducted.Cognitive experiments consisted of a task in the computer in which participants had to choose a face among 4 options, each associated with different frequencies or with positive, negative, neutral or mixed phrases. Two experimental groups were evaluated: the first was asked to choose a face without any specification(UST); and the second group was asked to choose a face for an important task(IMT). The results show: 1. The most repeated face was significantly more chosen in the UST group, which implied a significantly longer responsetime; 2. Faces with a positive association were significantly more chosen than others in both groups; 3. The effect persisted for at least 24 hours; 4. Top-down mechanisms modulates the DM processes.To compare the results in a more ecological situation, online social surveys were conducted during the 2019 Argentinean Presidential Elections (Social Study), as well as scraping news articles from print media to assess the frequency of mention of each candidate and sentiment analysis. From surveys, Familiarity(F), Trust(T) and Voting_Probability(VP) for each candidate, and the main means used by participants to inform themselves about them were estimated. T and F explain most of the variance of VP; in a cross-analysis between variables and for different candidates, T correlated better (than F) with VP, but both were significant in most analyses. Furthermore, F, T and VP for each candidate correlate significantly withfrequency of mentions, positive association and electoral outcomes.These results support our hypothesis and suggest that the susceptibility of complex DM to repetition or emotional priming might depend on top-down modulation.