How do consumers decide which products to buy, and does that change with aging?

This project team focused on factors contributing to age differences in economic decision-making. Studies examined the influence of memory and emotion and their neural correlates on decision quality in aging using consumer choices tasks and neuroimaging. Team members contributed to ongoing collaborative experimental studies (task development, data collection, analysis) and pursued independent research projects within the faculty leaders’ labs (e.g., independent data analysis for student poster symposium, publication in Duke Scientific Review). The first stage of the project was dedicated to developing experimental paradigms that would allow the team to determine how decisions about competing consumer products may be affected by 1) reliance on memory for product attributes and 2) the presence of positive and negative information.

Timing

2013-2014

Team Outcomes

Consumer Choice in Older Adults: What Happens When Memory Matters? (poster)

Consumer Choice and Cognitive Load: Negative Effects on Economic Decision-making (poster)