A Micro-World Simulation to Study Routine Maintenance and Deviation in Repeated Decision Making

This paper presents a computer controlled micro-world simulation (COMMERCE) to study routine effects in deliberate repeated decision making. COMMERCE employs an economic scenario which requires the participant to recurrently make acquisition and disposal decisions of industrial goods in order to maximize monetary profits. COMMERCE allows the experimenter to induce a decision routine (preference) for a target option by varying the frequency of choice repetition during a learning phase. In subsequent test phases, routine effects can be assessed by a number of variables such as information search and choice behavior.