Behavioral and neural predictors of upcoming decisions

Although it is widely known that brain regions such as the prefrontal cortex, the amygdala, and the ventral striatum play large roles in decision making, their precise contributions remain unclear. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging and principles of reinforcement learning theory to investigate the relationship between current reinforcements and future decisions. In the experiment, subjects chose between high-risk (i.e., low probability of a large monetary reward) and low-risk (high probability of a small reward) decisions. For each subject, we estimated value functions that represented the degree to which reinforcements affected the value of decision options on the subsequent trial. Individual differences in value functions predicted not only trial-to-trial behavioral strategies, such as choosing high-risk decisions following high-risk rewards, but also the relationship between activity in prefrontal and subcortical regions during one trial and the decision made in the subsequent trial. These findings provide a novel link between behavior and neural activity by demonstrating that value functions are manifested both in adjustments in behavioral strategies and in the neural activity that accompanies those adjustments.     

Age differences in financial decision making: The benefits of more experience and less negative emotions

The emerging literature on aging and decision making posits that decision‐making competence changes with age, as a result of age differences in various cognitive and noncognitive individual‐differences characteristics. In a national life‐span sample from the United Kingdom (N = 926), we examined age differences in financial decisions, including performance measures of sunk cost and credit card repayment decisions, and self‐report measures of money management and financial decision outcomes. Participants also completed four individual‐differences characteristics that have been proposed as relevant to financial decision making, including two cognitive ones (numeracy and experience‐based knowledge) and two noncognitive ones (negative emotions about financial decisions). First, we examined how age was related to the four financial decision‐making measures and the four individual‐differences characteristics. Older age was correlated to better scores on each of the four financial decision‐making measures, more experience‐based knowledge, less negative emotions about financial decisions, whereas numeracy and motivation were not significantly correlated with age. Second, we found that considering both the two cognitive and the two noncognitive individual‐differences characteristics increased predictions of financial decision making, as compared with considering either alone. Third, we examined how these four individual‐differences characteristics contributed to age differences in financial decision making. Older adults' higher levels of experience‐based knowledge and lower levels of negative emotions seemed to especially benefit their financial decision making. We discuss implications for theories on aging and decision making, as well as for interventions targeting financial decisions.     

Waiting When Both Certainty and Magnitude Are Increasing: Certainty Overshadows Magnitude

In everyday decision making, people often face decisions with outcomes that differ on multiple dimensions. The trade‐off in preferences between magnitude, temporal proximity, and probability of an outcome is a fundamental concern in the decision‐making literature. Yet, their joint effects on behavior in an experience‐based decision‐making task are understudied. Two experiments examined the relative influences of the magnitude and probability of an outcome when both were increasing over a 10‐second delay. A first‐person shooter video game was adapted for this purpose. Experiment 1 showed that participants waited longer to ensure a higher probability of the outcome than to ensure a greater magnitude when experienced separately and together. Experiment 2 provided a precise method of comparing their relative control on waiting by having each increase at different rates. Both experiments revealed a stronger influence of increasing probability than increasing magnitude. The results were more consistent with hyperbolic discounting of probability than with cumulative prospect theory's decision weight function. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dissociation of reward and effort sensitivity in methcathinone‐induced Parkinsonism

Methcathinone‐induced Parkinsonism is a recently described extrapyramidal syndrome characterized by globus pallidus and substantia nigra lesions, which provides a unique model of basal ganglia dysfunction. We assessed motivated behaviour in this condition using a novel cost‐benefit decision‐making task, in which participants decided whether it was worth investing effort for reward. Patients showed a dissociation between reward and effort sensitivity, such that pallidonigral complex dysfunction caused them to become less sensitive to rewards, while normal sensitivity to effort costs was maintained.     

Decision Neuroscience: New Directions in Studies of Judgment and Decision Making

ABSTRACT— Investigations of decision making have historically been undertaken by different disciplines, each using different techniques and assumptions, and few unifying efforts have been made. Economists have focused on precise mathematical models of normative decision making, psychologists have examined how decisions are actually made based on cognitive constraints, and neuroscientists have concentrated on the detailed operation of neural systems in simple choices. In recent years, however, researchers in these separate fields have joined forces in an attempt to better specify the foundations of decision making. This interdisciplinary effort has begun to use decision theory to guide the search for the neural bases of reward value and predictability. Concurrently, these formal models are beginning to incorporate processes such as social reward and emotion. The combination of these diverse theoretical approaches and methodologies is already yielding significant progress in the construction of more comprehensive decision-making models.     

奖赏和损失情境下男性海洛因戒断者的风险决策缺陷

摘 要 采用修改版的多伦多赌博任务考察决策情境对海洛因戒断者风险决策的影响。研究结果主要发现,海洛因戒断者在损失情境下的风险寻求决策比率与吸毒年限显著正相关,这种相关提示了风险决策背景下海洛因成瘾者持续使用毒品与其较低的损失敏感性之间的复杂交互作用。其次,海洛因戒断者在做出风险决策后收到消极反馈时的风险规避倾向可以负向预测其风险寻求决策比率,这可能进一步反映了海洛因戒断者风险感知的钝化或其对消极反馈信息的整合加工存在异常。     

Unpacking Response Contingent Positive Reinforcement: Reward Probability,but Not Environmental Suppressors,Prospectively Predicts Depressive Symptoms via Behavioral Activation

Behavioral models of depression conceptualize the development and maintenance of depressive symptoms as occurring within a system of response-contingent positive reinforcement (RCPR). Such models propose a negative cycle in which a decrease in positive reinforcement of adaptive, approach-oriented behaviors (i.e., RCPR) results in reduced behavioral activation and increased depressive symptoms, which in turn feeds back into further decreases in positive reinforcement and maintains the cycle. Previous research indicates that RCPR has two lower-order constructs, reward probability and environmental suppressors. The present study evaluated a hypothesized mediational model in which the paths from each of the two domains of RCPR to depressive symptoms are mediated by behavioral activation. The sample consisted of 150 college students (78.0% women), ranging in age from 18 to 47 years (M = 20.81, SD = 3.96), who endorsed moderate to severe depressive symptoms at a baseline (time 1) evaluation. Findings from a path analysis provide support for the mediated path between reward probability at time 1 and depressive symptoms at time 3, via behavioral activation at time 2. In contrast, environmental suppressors at time 1 demonstrated a direct impact on depressive symptoms at time 3, and this relationship was not mediated by behavioral activation at time 2. These findings provide a partial test of behavioral frameworks and provide evidence of separate pathways between domains of RCPR and depressive symptoms.     

氟哌啶醇与丙咪嗪交互作用对成本效益决策的影响

本实验采用T迷宫延迟奖赏模型研究多巴胺D2受体拮抗剂氟哌啶醇和5-羟色胺重摄取抑制剂丙咪嗪的交互作用对成本效益决策的影响, 同时探讨了延迟时间对决策的影响。T迷宫两臂分别设置为低成本-低奖赏端和高成本-高奖赏端。实验结果发现：氟哌啶醇能够降低大鼠选择高成本-高奖赏端的次数, 丙咪嗪则能够增加大鼠选择高成本-高奖赏端的次数; 在同时注射这两种药物情况下, 丙咪嗪能够抑制由氟哌啶醇引起的对低成本-低奖赏端的选择倾向。另外, 实验发现, 随延迟时间的增加大鼠选择高成本-高奖赏端的次数相对减少。由此可见, 丙咪嗪能够反转由氟哌啶醇导致的对低成本-低奖赏端的选择倾向, 这可能是由于细胞间5-羟色胺含量的升高部分反转了由多巴胺系统受损导致的行为倾向; 延迟时间的改变可对决策倾向产生逆转, 因此成本的支出即延迟时间也是影响成本效益决策的重要因素。     

The role of moral utility in decision making: An interdisciplinary framework

What decisions should we make? Moral values, rules, and virtues provide standards for morally acceptable decisions, without prescribing how we should reach them. However, moral theories do assume that we are, at least in principle, capable of making the right decisions. Consequently, an empirical investigation of the methods and resources we use for making moral decisions becomes relevant. We consider theoretical parallels of economic decision theory and moral utilitarianism and suggest that moral decision making may tap into mechanisms and processes that have originally evolved for nonmoral decision making. For example, the computation of reward value occurs through the combination of probability and magnitude; similar computation might also be used for determining utilitarian moral value. Both nonmoral and moral decisions may resort to intuitions and heuristics. Learning mechanisms implicated in the assignment of reward value to stimuli, actions, and outcomes may also enable us to determine moral value and assign it to stimuli, actions, and outcomes. In conclusion, we suggest that moral capabilities can employ and benefit from a variety of nonmoral decision-making and learning mechanisms.     

Adolescents let sufficient evidence accumulate before making a decision when large incentives are at stake

Adolescent decision‐making has been described as impulsive and suboptimal in the presence of incentives. In this study we examined the neural substrates of adolescent decision‐making using a perceptual discrimination task for which small and large rewards were associated with correctly detecting the direction of motion of a cloud of moving dots. Adults showed a reward bias of faster reaction times on trials for which the direction of motion was associated with a large reward. Adolescents, in contrast, were slower to make decisions on trials associated with large rewards. This behavioral pattern in adolescents was paralleled by greater recruitment of fronto‐parietal regions important in representing the accumulation of evidence sufficient for selecting one choice over its alternative and the certainty of that choice. The findings suggest that when large incentives are dependent on performance, adolescents may require more evidence to accumulate prior to responding, to be certain to maximize their gains. Adults, in contrast, appear to be quicker in evaluating the evidence for a decision when primed by rewards. Overall these findings suggest that rather than reacting hastily, adolescents can be incentivized to take more time to make decisions when large rewards are at stake. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at http://youtu.be/1g4F5vzFDl0     

“Either a medal or a corporal”: The effects of success and failure on the evaluation of decision making and decision makers

This paper is concerned with judgment by outcomes—justifying decisions and rewarding decision makers in case of success, and condemning both in case of failure. Officers in the Israel Defense Forces evaluated four versions of the same case of decision making in a military setting. In two versions the decision maker obeys his orders, in two he disobeys them to take a normatively appropriate action; one of each decision is successful, one of each fails. Though the cases are identical except for the above differences, successful decisions are considered more justified and to follow from superior decision making processes; decision making processes are perceived as more satisfactory when they lead to success, and successful decision makers are perceived more favorably than their unsuccessful counterparts. Role expectations regarding appropriate action influenced the justification of decisions and perceived favorability of decision makers and interacted with outcome valence in determining the allocation of reward and punishment and the evaluation of the decision making process. The paper discusses implications of the findings to Behavioral Decision Theory, Attribution Theory, and Organizational Learning.     

Analytic Confidence and Political Decision‐Making: Theoretical Principles and Experimental Evidence From National Security Professionals

When making decisions under uncertainty, it is important to distinguish between the probability that a judgment is true and the confidence analysts possess in drawing their conclusions. Yet analysts and decision‐makers often struggle to define “confidence” in this context, and many ways that scholars use this term do not necessarily facilitate decision‐making under uncertainty. To help resolve this confusion, we argue for disaggregating analytic confidence along three dimensions: reliability of available evidence, range of reasonable opinion, and responsiveness to new information. After explaining how these attributes hold different implications for decision‐making in principle, we present survey experiments examining how analysts and decision‐makers employ these ideas in practice. Our first experiment found that each conception of confidence distinctively influenced national security professionals' evaluations of high‐stakes decisions. Our second experiment showed that inexperienced assessors of uncertainty could consistently discriminate among our conceptions of confidence when making political forecasts. We focus on national security, where debates about defining “confidence levels” have clear practical implications. But our theoretical framework generalizes to nearly any area of political decision‐making, and our empirical results provide encouraging evidence that analysts and decision‐makers can grasp these abstract elements of uncertainty.     

How effortful decisions get enacted: the motivating role of decision processes,desires, and anticipated emotions

Building on recent research examining the influence of decision making on subsequent goal striving and decision enactment, we consider and elaborate on the mechanisms through which effortful decisions are made, maintained, and enacted. Our proposed framework builds on the Dholakia and Bagozzi ( 2002 ) model, distinguishes between two important types of intentions and desires, and shows that the motivation‐mustering function of the decision process is mediated by goal and implementation desires. In addition to decision processes, the roles of goal feasibility, anticipated emotions, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control are also elaborated on. Through a two‐wave field study tracking real decisions and their pursuit by participants, we find empirical support for our model of effortful decision making and enactment. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Altering the Shape of Punishment Distributions Affects Decision Making in a Modified Iowa Gambling Task

Neuroeconomics research has shown that preference for gambling is altered by the statistical moments (mean, variance, and skew) of reward and punishment distributions. Although it has been shown that altered means can affect feedback‐based decision making tasks, little is known if the variance and skew will have an effect on these tasks. To investigate, we systematically controlled the variance (high, medium, and low) and skew (negative, zero, and positive) of the punishment distributions in a modified version of the Iowa Gambling Task. The Iowa Gambling Task has been used extensively in both academic and clinical domains to understand decision making and diagnose decision making impairments. Our results show that decision making can be altered by an interaction of variance and skew. We found a significant decrease over trials in choices from the decks with high variance and asymmetrically skewed punishments and from the decks with low variance and zero skew punishments. These results indicate that punishment distribution shape alone can change human perception of what is optimal (i.e., mean expected outcome) and may help explain what guides our day‐to‐day decisions. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

不确定性容忍度、损益概率及延迟风险对延迟选择的影响

研究通过两个实验考查了不确定性容忍度及相关变量对延迟选择的影响,其中实验1采用2（不确定性容忍度：高/低）×2（概率水平：高/中）被试间实验设计;研究2将实验任务设定在有延迟风险情景下中等概率水平,采用单因素（不确定性容忍度：高/低）被试间实验设计.实验1结果表明：不确定性容忍度与概率水平存在交互作用：中等概率时,低容忍度个体比高容忍度个体更偏好延迟选择,高概率时,两者的延迟选择无显著差异,都偏好于选择决策.实验2结果表明：在有延迟风险中等概率时,高、低容忍度个体的决策偏好无显著差异,都偏好选择决策.结论：不确定性容忍度对延迟选择存在影响且受概率水平和延迟风险的调节.     

Power,Leadership, and Self‐Regulation

Power has been linked to both self‐regulatory success and failure. Power typically aids self‐regulation of task performance by making people motivated and goal‐oriented. However, because people’s self‐regulatory resources are limited, as powerful people exert effort on their focal tasks, they may fail to self‐regulate in other domains. This type of goal myopia may lead to detriments in impulse control. Wielding power, by making decisions and leading subordinates, can deplete people’s self‐regulatory resources, making subsequent acts of self‐control more difficult.     

Cultural Chameleons: Biculturals,Conformity Motives,and Decision Making

Prior research suggests that bicultural individuals (i.e., individuals with 2 distinct sets of cultural values) shift the values they espouse depending on cues such as language. The authors examined whether the effects of language extend to a potentially less malleable domain, behavioral decisions, exploring the extent to which bilingual individuals shift the underlying strategies used to resolve choice problems. Although past research has explained language‐induced shifts in terms of knowledge accessibility principles, the motivation to conform to observers’ norms can also drive these shifts. This article focuses on shifts in the general strategy of avoiding losses rather than pursuing gains, which is more often exhibited by Chinese than by Westerners. Five studies of Hong Kong bicultural individuals found that language manipulation (Cantonese vs. English) increases tendencies to choose compromise options in a product decision task, endorse associated decision guidelines that advocate moderation as opposed to extreme paths, defer decision making in problems where it can be postponed, and endorse decision guidelines that advocate caution rather than decisive action. A motivational explanation of these effects was confirmed.     

Response rate correlates with indifference points in a delay‐discounting procedure

To study how effort affects reward value, we replicated Fortes, Vasconcelos and Machado's (2015) study using an adjusting‐delay task. Nine pigeons chose between a standard alternative that gave access to 4 s of food, after a 10 s delay, and an adjusting‐delay alternative that gave access to 12 s of food after a delay that changed dynamically with the pigeons' choices, decreasing when they preferred the standard alternative, and increasing when they preferred the adjusting alternative. The delay value at which preference stabilized defined the indifference point, a measure of reward value. To manipulate effort across phases, we varied the response rate required during the delay of the standard alternative. Results showed that a) the indifference point increased in the higher‐response‐rate phases, suggesting that reward value decreased with effort, and b) in the higher‐response‐rate phases, response rate in the standard alternative was linearly related to the indifference point. We advance several conceptions of how effort may change perceived delay or amount and thereby affect reward value.     

Worth the wait: Children trade off delay and reward in self‐ and other‐benefiting decisions

Human prosocial behaviors are supported by early‐emerging psychological processes that detect and fulfill the needs of others. However, little is known about the mechanisms that enable children to deliver benefits to others at costs to the self, which requires weighing other‐regarding and self‐serving preferences. We used an intertemporal choice paradigm to systematically study and compare these behaviors in 5‐year‐old children. Our results show that other‐benefiting and self‐benefiting behavior share a common decision‐making process that integrates delay and reward. Specifically, we found that children sought to minimize delay and maximize reward, and traded off delays against rewards, regardless of whether these rewards were for the children themselves or another child. However, we found that children were more willing to invest their time to benefit themselves than someone else. Together, these findings show that from childhood, other‐ and self‐serving decisions are supported by a general mechanism that flexibly integrates information about the magnitude of rewards, and the opportunity costs of pursuing them. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/r8S0DGe7f8Q