ABSTRACT
Heading down the highway of life, we are faced with many decisions. There are different types of decisions that we must make as well. For example, when planning for a vacation, someone may make a detailed, logical analysis concerning where to go. Along the way, he may then use simple rules to decide when and where to stop and which specific routes to take, depending on incidental factors such as traffic. It is important to understand how these various decision domains are differently perceived and processed. On the one hand, under novel decision-making conditions, there is no prior experience to guide the decision-making process. In this case, how does one select the appropriate strategy?On the other hand, under repetitive decision-making conditions, there is a long history of experience. In this case, are some decisions truly automatic in the sense that they require no deliberation?In this chapter, we address the issue of how decision processes transit from more controlled or deliberative strategies, to simple decision rules, and finally to automatic or routine strategies. We attempt to answer these questions by developing a dynamic, computational model of decision making.
