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Updated: Apr 30, 2026

A Psychophysics Paradigm for the Collection and Analysis of Similarity Judgments
Published on: March 1, 2022
In the attraction, compromise, and similarity effects, alternatives are repeatedly compared in pairs on single
1Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.
Abstract:
In multi-alternative choice, the attraction, compromise, and similarity effects demonstrate that the value of an alternative is not independent of the other alternatives in the choice-set. Rather, these effects suggest that a choice is reached through the comparison of alternatives. We investigated exactly how alternatives are compared against each other using eye-movement data. The results indicate that a series of comparisons is made in each choice, with a pair of alternatives compared on a single attribute dimension in each comparison. We conclude that psychological models of choice should be based on these single-attribute pairwise comparisons.
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