ArticleFrontiers in psychology2025
The attraction effect in perceptual decision-making: a case of dominance asymmetry.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: The attraction effect (AE), or asymmetric dominance effect, occurs when the presence of a clearly inferior decoy increases the choice of a target over a competitor. While robust in value-based domains, findings with perceptual stimuli have been inconsistent, with some studies even reporting reversals in triangular arrangements of stimuli. Methods: Across four experiments and a reanalysis of prior data, we investigated whether these inconsistencies are attributable to the presence or absence of genuine item-wise dominance asymmetry. We utilized novel star-shaped stimuli and traditional rectangle stimuli to test the dominance asymmetry. Results: Experiment 1 established that the star-shaped stimuli reliably produced strong target-decoy (TD) dominance over competitor-decoy (CD) dominance, whereas traditional rectangles showed weaker but still positive asymmetry. Experiment 2 provided the first robust demonstration of a positive AE with perceptual stimuli in a triangular layout using stars, while Experiment 3 showed that rectangle stimuli, when presented in a triangular layout, produced an aggregate null rather than a negative effect. Similarly, the reanalysis of data from a previous triplet experiment involving bars stimuli pointed toward a null effect. Experiment 4 again linked inconsistent findings from linear vs. triangular alignment of triplet rectangles to the presence of asymmetric dominance, while also demonstrating an interaction between the differential ease of comparison in pairs and presentation format. Discussion: Together, these results demonstrate that AE is a robust phenomenon that emerges whenever decoys create strong item-level dominance asymmetry. Apparent inconsistencies with perceptual stimuli reflect stimulus-specific dominance structures. This work clarifies the boundary conditions of the AE, reinforces its domain generality, and provides methodological guidance for future research on context effects in perceptual decision-making.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.