An experimental analysis of risky-choice behavior

In an attempt to unite cognitive and behavioral models through the study of risky choice, Rachlin, Logue, Gibbon and Frankel used humans in a gambling scenario. Rachlin et al. explained the results they obtained with a behavioral model, the matching law. We replicated their experiment and added one additional component which should have caused different results than what Rachlin et al. obtained. Since we obtained the same results, we hypothesized that a more accurate explanation of the results is a cognitive model based on Kahneman and Tversky's "framing" theory. To support our hypothesis, we conducted two additional experiments using the same gambling scenario originally used by Rachlin et al. The results from these experiments supported our hypothesis that a cognitive model, rather than the behavioral model Rachlin et al. presented, better explains the findings from the studies conducted thus far on risky choice.