On May 29, 2023, at the invitation of the Faculty of Business and Management (FBM), Professor CHEW Soo Hong delivered a distinguished lecture entitled "Attention Theory, Soft and Hard".

Prof. Luchuan Liu Presented Souvenir to Prof. CHEW Soo Hong

Prof. CHEW Soo Hong is Chief Professor at the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, where he directs the China Center for Behavioral Economics and Finance. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society (2011), which awarded him the Leonard J. Savage thesis prize, and of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory. He is an Emeritus Professor at NUS and has previously taught at HKUST, UC lrvine, Johns Hopkins, and the University of Arizona. He has published in top-tier journals such as Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Economic Theory, Review of Economic Studies, International Economic Review as well as PNAS, Management Science, PRSB, Neuron, among many others.

Prof. CHEW Soo Hong’s lecture

In the beginning, Prof. CHEW introduced attention theory based on his previous research. Attention theory consists of “soft” which is based on observable choice and “hard” which towards biological accuracy. He also explained the theory of attention from a neurobiological point of view and demonstrated the top-down attention network and the bottom-up salience network. Then Prof. CHEW described the modeling role in decision making via Decision Weigh Approach and illustrated the concept of “loss aversion” and “ambiguity aversion” in decision making.

Prof. CHEW discussed the top-down attention and the impact of bottom-up salience with some experiments and examples. He also shared extensions and applications of attention theory in several areas, including temporal choice, social decision-making, motivated cognition, marketing, and finance.

Prof. CHEW Soo Hong Answered the Questions 

During Q&A, a FBM alumnus asked whether the processes of "attention to perception and cognition" can be modeled in the same way only by bottom-up. “Basically you can not, but the bottom-up is very predominant”answered Prof. CHEW.

The impassioned lecture, to the great benefit of the audience, ended with loud applause.