Assignment task: Two features of our results argue against the alternative possibility that participants treated the prime as a predictive or instructional cue about which outcome was about to occur. First, if this were true, the low-value (20) prime should also serve as an instructional cue, leading to increased risk aversion on those trials. This increase did not occur; the 20 prime had no significant effect on choice. Second, if participants interpreted the 60 prime as an instructional cue, it should have a diminished effect over time as participants realized that the prime was not predictive of trial outcome. Instead, the risk seeking induced by the 60 prime increased over the session despite the lack of any predictive relationship between the prime and the outcome of the choice on that trial.
1. According to the researchers, what was one feature of their results that ruled out the possibility that participants treated the prime as a predictive cue about which outcome was about to occur.