Is value perceived? Evidence from perceptual grouping in value-based choice

There is robust evidence that the revealed preference between two options changes when a third, nonpreferred option is made available. This is referred to as a context effect. Here, we assess whether context effects result from the automatic processing of value information and whether they obey the laws of perceptual organization. To do so, we ask participants to choose between two options while ignoring task-irrelevant distractors. On each trial, a high-value distractor is placed near one option, and a low-value distractor is placed near the other. If value is automatically processed (and the options and distractors are nonindependent), then the distractors will have a predictable influence on choice. This is exactly what we found in two experiments. In two follow-up experiments, we show that the context effect disappears when priming and perceptual grouping are inhibited. In a final experiment, we demonstrate that perceptual grouping influences context effects in the absence of priming. These findings are consistent with the conclusion that value is a perceptual, rather than a conceptual, event. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).