Attention Constraints and Learning in Categories

Abstract

Many decision makers are thought to economize on attention by processing information at the simpler level of a category. We directly test whether such category focus reflects an adaptive response to attention constraints, in five preregistered experiments using an information sampling paradigm with mouse tracking. Consistent with rational principles, participants focus more on category-level information when individual differences are small, when the category contains more members, and when time constraints are more severe. Participants are sensitive to the statistical structure of the category even when it must be learned from experience, and they respond to a latent shift in this structure. Beliefs about category members tend to cluster together more when category focus is high—a key element of rational inattention. However, this is counteracted by greater weight placed on salient and idiosyncratic information when the category is large. Our results broadly substantiate influential theories of categorical thinking, giving us a clearer view on the drivers and consequences of inattention. This paper was accepted by Marie Claire Villeval, behavioral economics and decision analysis. Funding: This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research (N00014-21-1-2170), the Pershing Square Fund for Research on the Foundations of Human Behavior, and an NWO Vidi grant (VI.Vidi.201.059). Supplemental Material: The data files and online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2023.4803 .