What Drives Salience vs. Rational Inattention? Experimental Evidence from Mutual Fund Choice

Last registered on June 18, 2026
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Pre-Trial

Trial Information

General Information

Title
What Drives Salience vs. Rational Inattention? Experimental Evidence from Mutual Fund Choice
RCT ID
AEARCTR-0018905
Initial registration date
June 15, 2026

Initial registration date is when the trial was registered.

It corresponds to when the registration was submitted to the Registry to be reviewed for publication.

First published
June 18, 2026, 9:33 AM EDT

First published corresponds to when the trial was first made public on the Registry after being reviewed.

Locations

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Primary Investigator

Name
Wanxiangyi Liu
Affiliation
Peking University
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Other Primary Investigator(s)

PI Name
Xu Han
PI Affiliation
Peking University
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PI Name
Yichen Wang
PI Affiliation
Peking University
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Additional Trial Information

Status
In development
Start date
2026-06-15
End date
2026-12-31
Keywords
Behavior
Additional Keywords
JEL code(s)
C91, D83, D91, G11, G41
Secondary IDs
Prior work
This trial does not extend or rely on any prior RCTs.
Abstract
Salience and rational inattention are two established channels through which people allocate attention, while which one dominates depends on the choice environment. We plan to conduct an online experiment to study the drivers of investors’ attention allocation in a mutual fund choice task where participants allocate a fixed endowment between two funds. Our information-display design allows fund choices to reveal whether attention is guided by salient cues or by decision-relevant information. Potential manipulations include time constraints (short vs. long), the format of the timer (eye-catching vs. standard), and the incentive size (high vs. low), with participants completing multiple rounds of fund allocation tasks to capture the role of learning. Our findings will inform disclosure and choice architecture in household finance by clarifying when and why investors lean on salient narratives versus decision-relevant statistics.
External Link(s)

Registration Citation

Citation
Han, Xu, Wanxiangyi Liu and Yichen Wang. 2026. "What Drives Salience vs. Rational Inattention? Experimental Evidence from Mutual Fund Choice." AEA RCT Registry. June 18. https://doi.org/10.1257/rct.18905-1.0
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Experimental Details

Interventions

Intervention(s)
The experiment is conducted on an online survey platform (e.g., Qualtrics) and uses a decision-making scenario regarding mutual fund investment. Participants are instructed to imagine themselves in a hypothetical stock market environment, based on real-world data, with the goal of achieving good returns while minimizing risk.
Participants receive information about multiple mutual funds, including historical performance and other fund-related descriptions. The study experimentally varies aspects of the choice environment, including information presentation and other decision-making conditions that may shape attention and investment choices.
Intervention Start Date
2026-06-15
Intervention End Date
2026-12-31

Primary Outcomes

Primary Outcomes (end points)
Our primary choice outcome is the proportion of the endowment allocated to the fund favored by decision-relevant information. We will also construct a binary indicator equal to one if the participant allocates a larger share of the endowment to the fund favored by decision-relevant information than to the alternative fund.
Primary Outcomes (explanation)

Secondary Outcomes

Secondary Outcomes (end points)
Secondary outcomes include self-reported time pressure, confidence in the allocation decision, comprehension or recall of the displayed fund information, participants’ ranking of the relevance of different information components, and, if technically feasible, behavioral measures of attention such as mouse-tracking.
Secondary Outcomes (explanation)

Experimental Design

Experimental Design
We conduct a randomized controlled experiment on an online survey platform such as Qualtrics, in which participants complete a repeated mutual fund allocation task. Participants are placed in a hypothetical financial market environment and are asked to allocate a fixed endowment between two mutual funds. The experiment is designed to study how decision-making conditions shape investors’ attention allocation and investment choices. Participants complete multiple rounds of similar allocation decisions, allowing us to examine how choices evolve with experience. The primary choice outcome is the proportion of the endowment allocated to the fund favored by task-relevant investment information. We will also construct a binary indicator equal to one if the participant allocates a larger share of the endowment to the favored fund than to the alternative fund.
Experimental Design Details
Not available
Randomization Method
Random assignment is conducted automatically by the survey platform using its built-in randomizer.
Randomization Unit
Individual participant.
Was the treatment clustered?
No

Experiment Characteristics

Sample size: planned number of clusters
800-1,280 individuals in the core design. If the incentive-size manipulation is implemented, the planned sample size may be increased accordingly.
Sample size: planned number of observations
800-1,280 individuals in the core design. Since participants complete repeated allocation tasks, the experiment will also generate multiple person-round observations per participant.
Sample size (or number of clusters) by treatment arms
Approximately 50-80 individuals under each of the 16 experimental conditions in the core 4×2×2 design. If the incentive-size manipulation is implemented, the design will include 32 experimental conditions, with approximately 30-50 individuals under each condition, for a total planned sample size of approximately 960-1,600 individuals.
Minimum detectable effect size for main outcomes (accounting for sample design and clustering)
Supporting Documents and Materials
IRB

Institutional Review Boards (IRBs)

IRB Name
Institutional Review Board, Guanghua School of Management, Peking University
IRB Approval Date
2026-06-12
IRB Approval Number
#2026-23
Analysis Plan