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Is Cognitive Impairment Related to Violations of Rationality? A Laboratory Alcohol Intoxication Study Testing Transitivity of Preference.

Clintin P Davis-StoberDenis M McCarthyDaniel R CavagnaroMason PriceNicholas BrownSanghyuk Park
Published in: Decision (Washington, D.C.) (2018)
Alcohol intoxication is well known to impair a number of cognitive abilities required for sound decision making. We tested whether an intoxicating dose of alcohol altered whether individuals satisfied a basic property of rational decision making, transitivity of preference. Our study was within-subjects in design and our analysis teased apart stable, yet error-prone, preferences from variable, error-free preferences. We find that alcohol intoxication does not appear to play a major role in determining whether subjects violate transitivity. For a minority of individuals, we find that alcohol intoxication does impact how they select among and/or perceive lotteries with similar attribute values. This, in turn, can cause them to alter various aspects of their preference structure.
Keyphrases
  • decision making
  • alcohol consumption
  • cognitive impairment
  • sensitive detection
  • single molecule