Supervisors: Jacob Lund Orquin & Carsten Bergenholtz
Discussants: Sascha Steinmann & Pernille Smith

Abstract
When faced with available and relevant information that could lead to unwanted consequences, individuals frequently engage in information avoidance to steer clear of belief changes, actions, or emotional discomfort. However, it remains unclear how information avoidance is expressed visually through attention or inattention. Drawing on recent advancements in vision science, we investigate the hypothesis that individuals can avoid information by actively suppressing visual attention based on expectations about the probable locations of avoided information.

To test this hypothesis, we employed a visual-search experimental paradigm in which participants could make accurate but unrewarding or inaccurate but rewarding choices, and recorded gaze using eye-tracking. We manipulated the probability of where accurate-unrewarding and inaccurate-rewarding information appeared on the screen. Our findings reveal that participants avoid gazing at accurate-unrewarding information by proactively suppressing visual attention to locations where the information is most likely to appear. Furthermore, we observed that dishonest participants are more inclined to suppress attention to accurate-unrewarding information. These results emphasize proactive suppression as a key mechanism in visual information avoidance.

Understanding the cognitive processes involved in information avoidance carries significant implications for decision-making and belief persistence. It sheds light on factors and biases that influence information selection, thus providing valuable insights for mitigating the impact of biases in areas such as financial- and health-related decision-making.

Everyone is welcome!