Cover -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- FOREWORD -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. The decision situation in an economic approach -- 1.1. The evolution of the concept of a decision situation -- 1.1.1. The decision situation as an ordered triple -- 1.1.2. The decision situation as an ordered quadruple -- 1.1.3. The decision situation as an ordered 5-tuple -- 1.2. The decision in the approach of game theory and behavioral economics -- 1.2.1. Behavioral economics as a theoretical approach and its methodological proposal for the economic sciences -- 1.2.2. The decision as human behavior from the perspective of the axioms of game theory -- Chapter 2. Optimality of the decision to invest in searching for new information -- 2.1. The situation of seeking new information -- 2.1.1. Searching for new information as a communication model: signal source - the decision maker -- 2.1.2. Source signals in a dynamic decision situation -- 2.1.3. The decision maker as a receiver system - as a perceptual-transformational mental system -- 2.1.4. The communication channel -- 2.1.5. The informational process and informational activity -- 2.1.6. Reliable and unreliable information in a dynamic decision situation -- 2.2. The problem of decision related to investing in the search for new information. -- 2.2.1. Criteria for optimal decisions related to investing in the search for new economic information -- 2.2.2. The optimal decision related to investing in the purchase of new economic information, from the perspective of the extreme criteria -- 2.2.3. The optimal decision related to investing in the purchase of new economic information, from the perspective of criteria concerning the subjective weight -- 2.2.4. The optimal decision related to investing in the purchase of new economic information, from the perspective of expectational criteria.

2.2.5. Comparison of the decision criteria in the analysis of optimality in seeking new information -- Chapter 3. Behavioral methods of research into finding new information in a dynamic decision situation -- 3.1. Selected descriptive and normative models in planning research on economicbehavior in a situation of seeking new information -- 3.1.1. Normative models -- 3.1.2. Descriptive models -- 3.2. Systematization of research on seeking for new information in decision situations -- 3.3. Research techniques using an unreliable source of information and the most common patterns of decision analysis in such situations -- 3.3.1. Classic Techniques -- 3.3.2. Psychophysical schemes and signal detection -- 3.3.3. Laboratory experiments and the most frequent patterns of decision analysis -- 3.3.4. Experiments investigating the so-called deferred decision -- 3.3.5. Natural experiments, quasi-natural and simulated situations, searching for information in economic decisions -- 3.4. Research results on seeking new information desired in a dynamic decision situation -- 3.4.1. General rules concerning the informational process in a decision making situation -- 3.4.2. Results of studies on the search for new reliable information -- 3.4.3. Cognitive fallacies (biases) arising from the limited rationality of the decisionmaker -- 3.4.4. The problem of the number of informational cycles in the light of experimental studies -- 3.4.5. Critical remarks concerning the research on the information-seeking activity in a dynamic decision situation -- Chapter 4. Two new variants of the optimal probabilistic model of the sequential search for probabilistic information in a dynamic decision-making situation -- 4.1. Experimental decision-making game as an empirical model for seeking new probabilistic information in dynamic decision-making situations.

4.1.1. Description of a decision-making experimental game: the preparatory phase -- 4.1.2. The key part of the experiment -- 4.1.3. The payoff matrix in the experiment and the method of testing -- 4.2. Normative decision-making model of the sequential search for new probabilistic information -- 4.2.1. The basic decision-making problem of the experimental game participant -- 4.2.2. Posing the problem of the decision to start and continue the investment activity to find new probabilistic information -- 4.2.3 The value of unreliable information -- 4.2.4. The cognitive decision in processing signals into probabilistic information (transformational decision) -- 4.2.5. The scheme of decisions designating the informational activity -- 4.3. Combinatorial model of decision-making concerning a purchase of probabilistic information -- 4.4. Application of the combinatorial model of decision-making concerning a purchase of probabilistic information -- Chapter 5. A proposal to integrate the concepts of information, decision, mass and energy: a behavioral approach -- 5.1. The concepts of mass and energy in physics -- 5.2. The notion of information by Shannon and Weaver and by Szaniawski. -- 5.2.1. Information in information theory -- 5.2.2. The pragmatic value of information -- 5.2.3. The relationship between the Shannon's and the Szaniawski's concepts of information -- 5.3. The concept of information understood as energy -- 5.4. The concepts of act and potency, and their usefulness in science -- 5.5. Theoretical and observational terms in the empirical sciences -- 5.6. Mass as potential energy -- 5.7. Energy as an act of a re-arrangement of the material and behavioral potentiality -- 5.8. The ontic-behavioral status of a scientific fact in energetics -- 5.9. The information equation.

5.10. Concluding remarks on the integration of concepts of information, decision, mass and energy -- 6. CONCLUSIONS -- Literature -- DEUTSCHE ZUSAMMENFASSUNG. Translated from English by Bernd-Joachim Ertelt.