scholarly journals Pigeons show how meta-control enables decision-making in an ambiguous world

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina Manns ◽  
Tobias Otto ◽  
Laurenz Salm
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Response Selection ◽  
Hemispheric Dominance ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Brain Hemispheres ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Attention Focus ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Encoding Strategies

AbstractIn situations where the left and right brain sides receive conflicting information that leads to incompatible response options, the brain requires efficient problem-solving mechanisms. This problem is particularly significant in lateralized brains, in which the hemispheres differ in encoding strategies or attention focus and hence, consider different information for decision-making. Meta-control, in which one hemisphere dominates ambiguous decisions, can be a mechanism that ensures fast behavioral reactions. We therefore confronted pigeons with a task in which two stimulus classes were brought into conflict. To this end, we trained pigeons simultaneously on two categories (cats or dogs) whereby each hemisphere learnt only one of the categories respectively. After learning, the birds were confronted with stimulus pairs that combined a picture with a cat (positive for one hemisphere) and a picture with a dog (positive for the other hemisphere). Pecking responses indicated the hemisphere dominating response selection. Pigeons displayed individual meta-control despite equal categorization performances of both brain hemispheres. This means that hemispheric dominance only emerged in interhemispheric conflict situations. The analysis of response latencies indicate that conflict decisions relied on intrahemispheric processes. Interhemispheric components played a role for more complex decisions. This flexibility could be a crucial building block for the evolutionary success of a lateralized brain.

scholarly journals Probing the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards in rats

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youna Vandaele ◽  
Magalie Lenoir ◽  
Caroline Vouillac-Mendoza ◽  
Karine Guillem ◽  
Serge H Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Choice Behavior ◽  
Response Selection ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Response Competition ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Competition Mechanism ◽  
Extended Training ◽  
Sequential Choice Model ◽  
Original Approach

Delineating the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards remains a challenge. This study adopts an original approach to probe these mechanisms by comparing response latencies during sampling versus choice trials. While lengthening of latencies during choice is predicted in a deliberative choice model (DCM), the race-like response competition mechanism postulated by the Sequential choice model (SCM) predicts a shortening of latencies during choice compared to sampling. Here, we tested these predictions by conducting a retrospective analysis of cocaine-versus-saccharin choice experiments conducted in our laboratory. We found that rats engage deliberative decision-making mechanisms after limited training, but adopt a SCM-like response selection mechanism after more extended training, while their behavior is presumably habitual. Thus, the DCM and SCM may not be general models of choice, as initially formulated, but could be dynamically engaged to control choice behavior across early and extended training.

scholarly journals Probing the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards in rats

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youna Vandaele ◽  
Magalie Lenoir ◽  
Caroline Vouillac-Mendoza ◽  
Karine Guillem ◽  
S.H. Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Behavioral Ecology ◽  
Control Mechanism ◽  
Response Selection ◽  
Choice Model ◽  
Response Competition ◽  
Recent Effort ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Competition Mechanism ◽  
Choice Setting

AbstractInvestigating the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards is essential to understand how their alterations can contribute to substance use disorders. However, despite some recent effort, this investigation remains a challenge in a drug choice setting, notably when it comes to delineate the role of goal-directed versus habitual control mechanisms. The goal of this study was to try probing these different mechanisms by comparing response latencies measured during sampling (i.e., only one option is available) and choice trials. A deliberative goal-directed control mechanism predicts a lengthening of latencies during choice whereas a habitual control mechanism predicts no change in latencies. Alternatively, a race-like response competition mechanism, such as that postulated by the behavioral ecology-inspired Sequential Choice Model (SCM), predicts instead a shortening of response latencies during choice compared to sampling. Here we tested the predictions of these different mechanisms by conducting a systematic retrospective analysis of all cocaine versus saccharin choice experiments conducted in rats in our laboratory over the past 12 years. Overall, we found that rats engage a deliberative goal-directed mechanism after limited training, but shift to a SCM-like response selection mechanism after more extended training. The latter finding suggests that habitual control is engaged in a choice setting via a race-like response competition mechanism, and thus, that the SCM is not a general model of choice, as formulated initially, but a specific model of habitual choice.

scholarly journals Behind Dislike: Adaptive Purposes for Undergraduates’ Negative Emotions in the Career Decision-Making Process

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8071
Author(s):  
Keith A. Puffer ◽  
Kris G. Pence
Keyword(s):  
College Students ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Negative Affect ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Career Decision ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Career Decision Making ◽  
Response Options

The first career interest inventory emerged in the late 1920s. The response options for the questions in the Strong Vocational Interest Blank included ‘like’ and ‘dislike.’ Both answers are emotional reactions. Regrettably, clients within the context of vocational counseling often regard negative feelings (e.g., dislikes) as inconsequential. Yet, negative emotionality can be adaptive and feasibly assist career decision-makers. In the literature on college students’ career development and emotional functioning, there is a paucity of information about how negative emotions advance the career decision-making process and how career decision-makers apply such knowledge. Hence, a sample of undergraduates (n = 256) was recruited to ascertain imaginable adaptive career decision-making benefits from negative affect. Employing a Mixed Methods-Grounded Theory methodology, the present study tabulated the negative emotional reactions of college students to vocations that were self- or computer-reported. In addition, their answers to two investigative questions about the selection of their negative emotions were analyzed. From the data, three negative meta-emotions emerged as reactions to participants’ reported occupations; four adaptive purposes for their selected negative affect were also discovered. A theoretical framework and applicative suggestions from the findings are presented.

Effective Communication During an Influenza Pandemic: The Value of Using a Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication Framework

2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 13S-17S ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Reynolds ◽  
Sandra Crouse Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Influenza Pandemic ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Persuasive Communication ◽  
Communication Framework ◽  
Conflicting Information ◽  
Scientific Experts ◽  
Positive Action

During a crisis, an open and empathetic style of communication that engenders the public's trust is the most effective when officials are attempting to galvanize the population to take a positive action or refrain from a harmful act. Although trust is imperative in a crisis, public suspicions of scientific experts and government are increasing for a variety of reasons, including access to more sources of conflicting information, a reduction in the use of scientific reasoning in decision making, and political infighting. Trust and credibility—which are demonstrated through empathy and caring, competence and expertise, honesty and openness, and dedication and commitment—are essential elements of persuasive communication.

scholarly journals Representation of actions and outcomes in medial prefrontal cortex during delayed conditional decision-making: Population analyses of single neuron activity

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 239821281877386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miranda J. Francoeur ◽  
Robert G. Mair
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Medial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Single Neuron ◽  
Neuron Activity ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Single Neuron Activity ◽  
Temporal Organisation ◽  
Matching To Position

Background: To respond adaptively in a dynamic environment, it is important for organisms to utilise information about recent events to decide between response options. Methods: To examine the role of medial prefrontal cortex in adaptive decision-making, we recorded single neuron activity in rats performing a dynamic delayed non-matching to position task. Results: We recorded activity from 1335 isolated neurons, 458 (34%) with criterion event-related activity, of which 431 (94%) exhibited 1 of 10 distinct excitatory response types: five at different times relative to delivery (or lack) of reinforcement following sample and choice responses and five correlated with movements or lever press actions that occurred multiple times in each trial. Normalised population averages revealed a precisely timed cascade of population responses representing the temporal organisation behavioural events that constitute delayed non-matching to position trials. Firing field analyses identified a subset of neurons with restricted spatial fields: responding to the conjunction of a behavioural event with a specific location. Anatomical analyses showed considerable overlap in the distribution of different response types in medial prefrontal cortex with a significant trend for dorsal areas to contain more neurons with action-related activity and ventral areas more responses related to action outcomes. Conclusion: These results indicate that medial prefrontal cortex contains discrete populations of neurons that represent the temporal organisation of actions and outcomes during delayed non-matching to position trials. They support the hypothesis that medial prefrontal cortex promotes flexible control of complex behaviours by action–outcome contingencies.

scholarly journals Seeing the Forest and the Trees: Comparison of Two IRTree Models to Investigate the Impact of Full Versus Endpoint-Only Response Option Labeling

2020 ◽  
pp. 001316442091865
Author(s):  
Elisabeth M. Spratto ◽  
Brian C. Leventhal ◽  
Deborah L. Bandalos
Keyword(s):  
Response Selection ◽  
Past Research ◽  
Consistent Pattern ◽  
Response Option ◽  
Response Options ◽  
The Impact

In this study, we examined the results and interpretations produced from two different IRTree models—one using paths consisting of only dichotomous decisions, and one using paths consisting of both dichotomous and polytomous decisions. We used data from two versions of an impulsivity measure. In the first version, all the response options had labels; in the second version, only the endpoints were labeled. Based on past research, we hypothesized that the endpoints would be selected more frequently in the endpoint-only labeled condition, and the midpoint response option would be selected more frequently in the fully labeled condition. Results from the two models (dichotomous and polytomous) were similar and indicated that our hypotheses were partially supported—specifically, there was no consistent pattern in terms of which condition saw a higher frequency of midpoint response selection. However, our hypotheses regarding extreme responding in the endpoint-only labeling condition were supported.

Why Sample? - Understanding Common Sampling Objectives for Oil Spill Response

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 (1) ◽  
pp. 2561-2580
Author(s):  
Angeline Morrow ◽  
Christopher Pfeifer ◽  
Victoria Broje ◽  
Rachel Grunberg
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Health And Safety ◽  
Chemical Properties ◽  
Alternative Response ◽  
Response Options ◽  
Worker Health And Safety ◽  
Oil Spill Response ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Physical And Chemical

ABSTRACT #2017-204: There is a growing recognition of the role science plays in supporting oil spill response coupled with increasing reliance on data-driven management and decision-making approaches. Collecting samples for analysis of hydrocarbons and other chemicals potentially used during oil spill response (e.g., dispersants) has become common place on many spills. While the rationale and approaches for oil spill sampling may be well known to experienced chemists and environmental scientists, the response community is still gaining experience in integrating sampling programs into dynamic oil spill response and decision-making. This paper reviews common sampling objectives for three key aspects of spill response: operational decision-support, environmental impact assessment (including natural resource damage assessment), and source identification. These broad categories span a range of interrelated sub-topics including, among others, public/worker health and safety; understanding how physical and chemical properties of oil influence selection of response options; monitoring cleanup effectiveness, especially for alternative response technologies such as dispersants; identifying and differentiating between spill and non-spill pollution sources; and evaluating potential impacts to resources at risk. Methods for achieving sampling objectives, including development of Sampling and Analysis Plans, are discussed with the goal of increasing awareness among response managers and improving response capability among staff who may be tasked with sampling support during training exercises or actual incidents. Relevant considerations for study design, collection methods, and analytical parameters are also reviewed.

scholarly journals LYRISM AND IDENTIFICATION OF IMAGES IN THE PLAY OF A. KEKILBAEV «ABYLAY KHAN»

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 295-300
Author(s):  
B. Sultanova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Dramatic Works ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Similarity And Difference

Kekilbaev's prose is distinguished by the severity of the conflict, the nature of the character's speech. The writer did not diminish these features in the play, if he did not enhance them. In the play, the psychological and dramatic aspect is enhanced according to the laws of dramatic art. The main problem in the play "Abylai Khan" is confusion in feelings, thoughts, actions of people, irresistible dynamics.The article examines the nature of the conflict in the dramatic works of the writer A. Kekilbaev. This article discusses issues that are key to Kazakh literature. The life of the heroes, their composure, features in decision making and their activities are disclosed. In addition, the peculiar similarity and difference of playwrights in creating images has been updated. The author analyzes images of conflict situations from the point of view of the artist’s skill.

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