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The description-experience gap is a phenomenon in experimental behavioral studies of decision making. The gap refers to the observed differences in people's behavior depending on whether their decisions are made towards clearly outlined and described outcomes and probabilities or whether they simply experience the alternatives without having any prior knowledge of the consequences of their choices.
In both described and experienced choice tasks, the experimental task usually involves selecting between one of two possible choices that lead to certain outcomes. The outcome could be a gain or a loss and the probabilities of these outcomes vary. Of the two choices, one is probabilistically safer than the other. The other choice, then, offers a comparably improbable outcome. The specific payoffs or outcomes of the choices, in terms of the magnitude of their potential gains and losses, varies from study to study.