| Popis: |
We will experimentally investigate the influence of visualisations in corporate disclosures on investors’ judgments and decision-making. Specifically, we are interested in whether visualisations improve investors’ understanding of corporate disclosures and whether this better understanding leads to more accurate investment decisions. From the existing accounting literature, the influence of visualisations on investors’ investment decisions is unclear. While visualisations have received relatively little attention in the accounting literature, there has been a growing number of studies that examine the influence of various other features of disclosures (e.g., readability) on investors’ investment decisions. Based on this literature, we expect that visualisations increase investors’ subjective feelings of processing fluency, which affectively influences their investment decisions. Alternatively, based on the cognitive theory of multimedia learning (CTML), we expect that visualisations decrease the cognitive load experienced by investors, which increases their understanding and improves their investment decisions. To test our hypotheses, we will conduct an experiment with 600 participants on Prolific. For our experiment, we will rely on motivated reasoning theory to disentangle the effects of processing fluency and the CTML. By only providing positive information and by assigning participants to a long or a short investment position, participants will receive respectively preference-consistent or preference-inconsistent information. Based on motivated reasoning theory, we expect that this will change participants’ information processing which will provide insight into whether, and to which extent, subjective feelings of processing fluency or understanding mediate the effect of visualisations on investors’ investment decisions. |
