In PNAS, Shevlin et al. (1) find that participants decide faster and more accurately when choosing between high-value as compared to low-value options. According to the authors, these results suggest that high-value options are easier to discriminate, and "cast doubt on the notion that increasing value reduces discriminability" predicted by principles like diminishing value sensitivity (2) and divisive normalization (3). This article is an important empirical contribution, demonstrating conditions under which increasing value leads to faster and more accurate choices. Previous studies reported only faster decisions for high-value equivalent options, and less accurate decisions for high-value unequal options (4-10). However, we believe that the results of Shevlin et al. (1) cannot rule out representational distortions, such as concave utility functions or divisive normalization.
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