Nicolao Bonini | University of Trento (original) (raw)

Papers by Nicolao Bonini

Cognitive Science, May 1, 2004

It is easy to construct pairs of sentences X, Y that lead many people to ascribe higher probabili... more It is easy to construct pairs of sentences X, Y that lead many people to ascribe higher probability to the conjunction X-and-Y than to the conjuncts X, Y. Whether an error is thereby committed depends on reasoners' interpretation of the expressions "probability" and "and." We report two experiments designed to clarify the normative status of typical responses to conjunction problems.

Giornale italiano di psicologia, 2020

Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Aug 12, 2011

This study manipulated the graphical representation of options by framing the physical characters... more This study manipulated the graphical representation of options by framing the physical characters in figures and found that preferences could be affected even when the words and numbers of the problem were constant. Based on attribute substitution theory and an equate-to-differentiate approach, we proposed a two-process model of graph framing effects. In the first mental process, the graph editing process, the physical features (e.g., distance, size) represented in the graph are visually edited and the perceived numerical difference between the options is judged based on its physical features. The second mental process, the preferential choice process, occurs by an equate-to-differentiate approach. People seek to equate the difference between options on the dimension on which the difference is smaller, thus leaving the greater other-dimensional difference to be the determinant of the final choice. Four experiments tested graph framing effects. Experiment 1 found a graph framing effect in coordinate graphs resting on the (de)compression of the scales employed in figures. Experiment 2 revealed additional graph framing effects in other question scenarios and showed that preference changes were mediated by perceived numerical distances. Experiment 3 further confirmed graph framing effects in sector graphs rather than in coordinate ones. Experiment 4 suggested that 2 such graph framing effects were eliminated when encouraging logical processing (e.g., introducing a mathematical operation before a choice task). This paper discusses related research and a possible substrate basis for graph framing effects.

Waste Management, May 1, 2023

International Journal of Sports Medicine, Jun 19, 2015

ABSTRACT The research presented here investigates the interaction between acute exercise, biologi... more ABSTRACT The research presented here investigates the interaction between acute exercise, biological sex and risk-taking behavior. The study involved 20 amateur athletes (19-33 years old), 10 males and 10 females, who were asked to undergo subsequent experimental sessions designed to compare their risky behaviors on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) 34 at rest and while exercising at moderate intensity (60% of their maximal aerobic power). Results showed that physical exercise affected male and female participants differently: Whereas males became more risk seeking, females became more risk averse during exercise. © Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart · New York.

Frontiers in Physiology, Aug 29, 2022

Mild degrees of hypoxia are known to exert a detrimental effect on cognitive functions. In a lab ... more Mild degrees of hypoxia are known to exert a detrimental effect on cognitive functions. In a lab study, we assessed the effect of mild hypoxia on risk-taking behavior. Participants (N = 25) were presented with pairs of bets of equal expected monetary value, one having a higher probability of winning/losing a lower payoff (safer bet) and one having a lower probability of winning/losing a higher payoff (riskier bet). We systematically varied the ratio of the probabilities (and corresponding payoffs) of the two bets and examined how this affected participants' choice between them. Following a familiarization session, participants performed the task twice: once in a normoxic environment (20.9% oxygen concentration) and once in a mildly hypoxic environment (14.1% oxygen concentration). Participants were not told and could not guess which environment they were in. We found a higher preference for the riskier bet in the mild hypoxic than normoxic environment but only in the loss domain. Furthermore, as the probability ratio increased, mild hypoxia increased the preference for the riskier bet in the domain of losses but decreased it for gains. The present findings support that mild hypoxia promotes riskier choices in the loss domain and provide new insights into the impact of mild hypoxia in moderating the effect of probability ratio on risky choices.

HAL (Le Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe), 2005

. This paper studies consistency in the judged probability of a target hypothesis in lists of mut... more . This paper studies consistency in the judged probability of a target hypothesis in lists of mutually exclusive nonexhaustive hypotheses. Specifically, it controls the role played by the support of displayed competing hypotheses and the relatedness between the target hypothesis and its alternatives. Three experiments are reported. In all experiments, groups of people were presented with a list of mutually exclusive nonexhaustive causes of a person’s death. In the first two experiments, they were asked to judge the probability of each cause as that of the person’s decease. In the third experiment, people were asked for a frequency estimation task. Target causes were presented in all lists. Several other alternative causes to the target ones differed across the lists. Findings show that the judged probability/frequency of a target cause changes as a function of the support of the displayed competing causes. Specifically, it is higher when its competing displayed causes have low rather than high support. Findings are consistent with the contrastive support hypothesis within the support theory.

Alternative measures of confirmation or evidential support have been proposed to express the impa... more Alternative measures of confirmation or evidential support have been proposed to express the impact of ascertaining one event on the credibility of another. We report an experiment that compares the adequacy of several such measures as descriptions of confirmation judgment in a probabilistic context. � 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Micro & Macro Marketing, 2014

Standard economic models explain decision-making under risk as a methodical utility maximization ... more Standard economic models explain decision-making under risk as a methodical utility maximization process. Developments in cognitive psychology and neuroeconomics show the volatility of such conceptualization highlighting human bounded rationality and discussing the role of decision makers' affective state in cognitive evaluations of risk ("risk as feelings"). Affective influences may be elicited by the decision process itself (integral affect) or might be associated with stimuli/events unrelated to the decision to be made (incidental affect). This paper reviews recent psychological and neuroscience literature on the role of incidental affect on risky choice, especially focusing on the personal finance domain. Evidence indicates that affective reactions carry over significant information about the goodness of certain choice options, especially under uncertainty conditions, directly influencing risk perception and risk taking behaviour ("affect as information"). The current paper discusses two lines of research: "mood maintenance" - "mood repair theories" and "Different Affect" - "Different Effect ("Dade") model". The first explains how the current affective valence (positive or negative) determines the psychological burden attributed to a risky option. The second suggests that affective states which share the same valence should target different motivational goals and could have opposite influences on risk taking. Recent studies showed that affective states can be investigated more comprehensive considering further dimensions of emotional experience (e.g. affective arousal). We prompt that preference might be affected by the motivation to manage both levels of valence and arousal during the decision making process. Going beyond a valence-based approach might result in a more suitable understanding of affective influences on risk taking behaviour.

Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics

Acta Psychologica, 2022

The cognitive reflection test (CRT) measures the ability to suppress an intuitive, but incorrect,... more The cognitive reflection test (CRT) measures the ability to suppress an intuitive, but incorrect, answer that easily comes to mind. The relationship between the CRT and different cognitive biases has been widely studied. However, whether cognitive reflection is related to attentional control is less well studied. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the inhibitory component of the CRT, measured by the number of non-intuitive answers of the CRT (Inhibitory Control Score), is related to the control of visual attention in visual tasks that involve overriding a bias in what to attend: an anti-saccade task and a visual search task. To test this possibility, we analyzed whether the CRT-Inhibitory Control Score (CRT-ICS) predicted attention allocation in each task. We compared the relationship between the CRT-ICS to two other potential predictors of attentional control: numeracy and visual working memory (VWM). Participants who scored lower on the CRT-ICS made more errors in the "look-away" trials in the anti-saccade task. Participants who scored higher on the CRT-ICS looked more often towards more informative color subsets in the visual search task. However, when controlling for numeracy and visual working memory, CRT-ICS scores were only related to the control of visual attention in the anti-saccade task.

The study of the interactions between olfaction and the decision making processes has mainly focu... more The study of the interactions between olfaction and the decision making processes has mainly focused on the investigation of what is considered the most useful odor to disperse in the air to drive the consumers' choices to prefer a product rather than another one. Despite the fact that some studies showed the existence of associations between odors and prosocial behavior, much less data are available on the links between olfaction and donation in favor of public goods. Thus, the main purpose of the series of experiments described in this thesis is precisely that to shed some light on the investigation of the nature of pleasant odor-decision and on the chemosignal-decision associations. In order to achieve this, the presence of an odor and the congruence between odor and decision task has been manipulated, and the decision to donate has been tested in different domains.

In the recent history of food production, numerous scares have occurred that have severely threat... more In the recent history of food production, numerous scares have occurred that have severely threatened consumers&amp;#x27; health. These scares are usually followed by crises of consumption. A food crisis can be defined as a sudden decrease of the aggregate demand for a product ...

Journal of Environmental Psychology

Previous studied showed an association between impulsivity and abnormal behaviors in pathological... more Previous studied showed an association between impulsivity and abnormal behaviors in pathological gamblers. However, impulsivity may be one of the causes leading to their problems. Other factors such as abnormalities in the perception of emotions associated with economic offers, or emotion dysregulation, may exacerbate their decisions. Last, but not least, an overconfidence in the quality of their decisions may contribute too to their decisions. To test for these hypotheses, we tested 11 individuals diagnosed pathological gamblers, and 17 normal controls in an intertemporal choice task that included questions about emotion perception (valence and arousal at a subjective level) after each choice. Moreover, after the experiment, participants were tested for anxiety, depression, emotion regulation abilities, and confidence in their choices. results showed that as expected, gamblers scored higher on impulsivity questionnaires, but also in depression, usage of maladaptive regulation strategies, but not in anxiety or confidence in their choices. We conclude by speculating on the need to in-corporate emotion regulation difficulties in terms of regulation strategies, dysregulated impulsivity and mood, in the conceptualization of pathological gambling for a better understanding and treatment of this pathology