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📊 Session Complete

$20,000.00
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📰 Market News

Pre-Study Survey
About 3 minutes · All answers are anonymous · No right or wrong answers
Financial knowledge
1. You put $100 in a savings account at 2% interest per year and leave it for 5 years. How much will you have?
2. Your savings earns 1% interest per year; inflation is 2% per year. After one year, what can you buy with that money?
3. True or false: Investing in a single company's stock is safer than investing in a diversified stock mutual fund.
Risk attitude — DOSPERT financial subscale (Blais & Weber, 2006)
How likely are you to engage in each activity? (1 = Extremely unlikely, 7 = Extremely likely)
4. Investing 10% of your annual income in a moderately risky mutual fund.
Unlikely (1)
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Likely (7)
5. Investing 5% of your annual income in a very speculative stock.
Unlikely (1)
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Likely (7)
6. Putting a portion of your savings into a high-risk, high-reward investment opportunity.
Unlikely (1)
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Likely (7)
7. Investing in a new, unproven business venture.
Unlikely (1)
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Likely (7)
8. Investing 10% of your annual income in a highly volatile individual stock.
Unlikely (1)
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Likely (7)
9. Taking out a loan to invest in a potentially profitable but risky opportunity.
Unlikely (1)
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Likely (7)
AI experience
10. I trust AI systems to provide accurate information.
Strongly disagree (1)
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Strongly agree (7)
11. How often do you use AI tools (e.g. ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot)?
About you
12. Your age group:
13. Your prior investing experience:
Your answers are stored anonymously and used only for academic research.
Post-Study Survey
A few final questions · 2–3 minutes
Your experience
1. Overall, how useful was the market information available to you during this study?
Not useful (1)
4
Very useful (7)
2. How confident did you feel in your investment decisions overall?
Not confident (1)
4
Very confident (7)
Checks
Attention check: for this question, please select 3 on the scale.
1
4
7
During Part 1 of the study, did you receive investment recommendations or AI assistance?
During Part 1, do you think any recommendations you received were intentionally incorrect or misleading?
All responses are anonymous. Thank you for your participation.
Study Debrief — Thank You
Please read the following before seeing your results.

What this study compared

Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no assistance (decisions made independently), rule-based signal aid (a formula-driven recommendation engine), or AI chat assistant (a conversational LLM). The study measures how each type of aid affects decision accuracy, confidence, and risk behaviour.

About the probe trials in Part 1

In Part 1, participants who received assistance saw a small number of deliberately suboptimal recommendations — cases where the aid confidently recommended the objectively weaker action. This is a standard research technique to measure over-reliance on AI. All scenarios used fictional companies. This deception presents no real risk and is disclosed now, as is standard practice in decision research.

No real money or financial advice

All transactions used simulated money ($20,000 starting balance). Nothing you did affects any real account. Nothing shown in this study is financial advice.

Your data and privacy

Your responses are stored under a random anonymous ID. Your name and identity are never linked to research data. You may request deletion of your data by contacting the researcher: Srivatsan Balaji.

Platform Orientation
Read the following before starting Part 1

Part 1 — Decision Battery

You will review 16 investment scenarios, one at a time. Each shows a fictional company or asset with financial data: price trend, valuation, revenue, margins, debt, volatility, and a recent news item. After reviewing the data, choose one of three actions: BUY (take a position), HOLD (neutral — no strong case either way), or AVOID (decline or exit). Then rate your confidence on a 1–7 scale. Take your time on each item.

Part 2 — Live Market Session

After the battery you will have a 5-minute active trading session using $20,000 of simulated money. You can buy and sell any asset in the sidebar. All trading is simulated — no real money is involved. Prices are a mix of live market data and simulation.

📋 Part 1 — Decision Battery
Item 1 of 16
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Trend—
Valuation—
Revenue—
Margins—
Debt / FCF—
Volatility—
Dividend—
News—
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Signal Engine · Computed from market data · Not financial advice
🤖 AI Assistant
Your decision for this asset:
How confident are you in this decision?
Not at all (1)
4
Extremely (7)
All scenarios are fictional and for academic research only. Not financial advice.
✅ Part 1 Complete
Starting Part 2 — Live Market Trading Session

Part 2 is a 5-minute live trading session with $20,000 of simulated money. Use this time to buy and sell assets in the sidebar, there's no set number of trades required, just trade as you normally would. The session ends automatically once 5 active minutes are up.

Attention check: for this question, please select 3 on the scale.
1
4
7
⚠ Reconnecting to price stream…
S&P 500——
NASDAQ——
DOW——
BTC——
0mplayed
0:00session
Connecting…
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—Select an asset
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🟡 DELAYED
Buy
Sell
Cash: $20,000.00 Holdings: $0.00 P&L: +$0.00
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Before you confirm this trade —
how confident are you in this decision?
Not at all (1)
4
Extremely (7)
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How much would you like to trade?
USD of — ≈ — shares
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