These studies suggest that choice blindness can occur in a wide variety of situations and can have serious implications for medical and judicial outcomes.
"There's no question people can take things a long way toward reversing diabetes, reversing high blood pressure, even preventing cancer by food choices," Nadeau says.
On the other hand, subjects who chose the larger Amazon gift certificate showed increased activity in the prefrontal cortex, which allowed them to do the math and select the "rational" option.
The system, which is similar to the kind used in Nissan's autonomous vehicle technology, will be tested at select restaurants in Japan this year, Nissan said.
Participants who had both status and power did not greatly demean their partners. They chose an average of 0.67 demeaning activities for those partners to perform.