scholarly journals Humans incorporate trial-to-trial working memory uncertainty into rewarded decisions

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (15) ◽  
pp. 8391-8397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maija Honig ◽  
Wei Ji Ma ◽  
Daryl Fougnie
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Stimulus Color ◽  
Uncertainty Information ◽  
Best Fit ◽  
With Memory

Working memory (WM) plays an important role in action planning and decision making; however, both the informational content of memory and how that information is used in decisions remain poorly understood. To investigate this, we used a color WM task in which subjects viewed colored stimuli and reported both an estimate of a stimulus color and a measure of memory uncertainty, obtained through a rewarded decision. Reported memory uncertainty is correlated with memory error, showing that people incorporate their trial-to-trial memory quality into rewarded decisions. Moreover, memory uncertainty can be combined with other sources of information; after inducing expectations (prior beliefs) about stimuli probabilities, we found that estimates became shifted toward expected colors, with the shift increasing with reported uncertainty. The data are best fit by models in which people incorporate their trial-to-trial memory uncertainty with potential rewards and prior beliefs. Our results suggest that WM represents uncertainty information, and that this can be combined with prior beliefs. This highlights the potential complexity of WM representations and shows that rewarded decision can be a powerful tool for examining WM and informing and constraining theoretical, computational, and neurobiological models of memory.

scholarly journals Humans incorporate trial-to-trial working memory uncertainty into rewarded decisions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maija Honig ◽  
Wei Ji Ma ◽  
Daryl Fougnie
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Estimation Error ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Informational Content ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Memory Experiment

In daily life, working memory plays an important role in action planning and decision-making. However, both the informational content of memory and how that information is used in decisions is poorly understood. To investigate this, we conducted a memory experiment where people not only reported an estimate of a remembered stimulus, but also made a rewarded decision designed to reflect memory uncertainty. Reported memory uncertainty is correlated with estimation error, showing people incorporate their trial-to-trial memory quality into rewarded decisions. Moreover, memory uncertainty can be combined with other sources of information; after we induced prior beliefs about stimuli probabilities, we found that estimates shifted towards more frequent colors, with the shift increasing with reported uncertainty. The data is best predicted by models where people incorporate their trial-to-trial memory uncertainty with potential rewards and prior beliefs, highlighting the importance of studying working memory as a process integrated with decision-making.

scholarly journals Robust spatial ventriloquism effect and aftereffect under memory interference

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hame Park ◽  
Christoph Kayser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Sequential Effects ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Memory Interference ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
Ventriloquism Aftereffect ◽  
With Memory

ABSTRACTOur brain adapts to discrepancies in the sensory inputs. One example is provided by the ventriloquism effect, experienced when the sight and sound of an object are displaced. Here the discrepant multisensory stimuli not only result in a biased localization of the sound, but also recalibrate the perception of subsequent unisensory acoustic information in the so-called ventriloquism aftereffect. This aftereffect has been linked to memory-related processes based on its parallels to general sequential effects in perceptual decision making experiments and insights obtained in neuroimaging studies. For example, we have recently implied memory-related medial parietal regions in the trial-by-trial ventriloquism aftereffect. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the ventriloquism aftereffect is indeed susceptible to manipulations interfering with working memory. Across three experiments we systematically manipulated the temporal delays between stimuli and response for either the ventriloquism or the aftereffect trials, or added a sensory-motor masking trial in between. Our data reveal no significant impact of either of these manipulations on the aftereffect, suggesting that the recalibration reflected by the ventriloquism aftereffect is surprisingly resilient to manipulations interfering with memory-related processes.

scholarly journals Robust spatial ventriloquism effect and trial-by-trial aftereffect under memory interference

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hame Park ◽  
Christoph Kayser
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Working Memory ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Sequential Effects ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Sensory Inputs ◽  
Memory Interference ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
Ventriloquism Aftereffect ◽  
With Memory

AbstractOur brain adapts to discrepancies in the sensory inputs. One example is provided by the ventriloquism effect, experienced when the sight and sound of an object are displaced. Here the discrepant multisensory stimuli not only result in a biased localization of the sound, but also recalibrate the perception of subsequent unisensory acoustic information in the so-called ventriloquism aftereffect. This aftereffect has been linked to memory-related processes based on its parallels to general sequential effects in perceptual decision making experiments and insights obtained in neuroimaging studies. For example, we have recently implied memory-related medial parietal regions in the trial-by-trial ventriloquism aftereffect. Here, we tested the hypothesis that the trial-by-trial (or immediate) ventriloquism aftereffect is indeed susceptible to manipulations interfering with working memory. Across three experiments we systematically manipulated the temporal delays between stimuli and response for either the ventriloquism or the aftereffect trials, or added a sensory-motor masking trial in between. Our data reveal no significant impact of either of these manipulations on the aftereffect, suggesting that the recalibration reflected by the trial-by-trial ventriloquism aftereffect is surprisingly resilient to manipulations interfering with memory-related processes.

“It's Not Humanly Possible to Do Everything”: Perspectives on Intervention Decision-Making Processes of Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erinn Finke ◽  
Kathryn Drager ◽  
Elizabeth C. Serpentine
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Individualized Education Program ◽  
Children With Autism ◽  
Autism Spectrum ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Interview Methodology ◽  
Communication Interventions

Purpose The purpose of this investigation was to understand the decision-making processes used by parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) related to communication-based interventions. Method Qualitative interview methodology was used. Data were gathered through interviews. Each parent had a child with ASD who was at least four-years-old; lived with their child with ASD; had a child with ASD without functional speech for communication; and used at least two different communication interventions. Results Parents considered several sources of information for learning about interventions and provided various reasons to initiate and discontinue a communication intervention. Parents also discussed challenges introduced once opinions of the school individualized education program (IEP) team had to be considered. Conclusions Parents of children with ASD primarily use individual decision-making processes to select interventions. This discrepancy speaks to the need for parents and professionals to share a common “language” about interventions and the decision-making process.

Evidence for a single mechanism gating perceptual and long-term memory information into working memory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Verschooren ◽  
Yoav Kessler ◽  
Tobias Egner
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Long Term Memory ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Term Memory ◽  
Source Selection ◽  
Single Mechanism ◽  
Gating Mechanism ◽  
Opening And Closing ◽  
Selection Of

An influential view of working memory (WM) holds that its’ contents are controlled by a selective gating mechanism that allows for relevant perceptual information to enter WM when opened, but shields WM contents from interference when closed. In support of this idea, prior studies using the reference-back paradigm have established behavioral costs for opening and closing the gate between perception and WM. WM also frequently requires input from long-term memory (LTM), but it is currently unknown whether a similar gate controls the selection of LTM representations into WM, and how WM gating of perceptual vs. LTM sources of information relate to each other. To address these key theoretical questions, we devised a novel version of the reference-back paradigm, where participants switched between gating perceptual and LTM information into WM. We observed clear evidence for gate opening and closing costs in both cases. Moreover, the pattern of costs associated with gating and source-switching indicated that perceptual and LTM information is gated into WM via a single gate, and rely on a shared source-selection mechanism. These findings extend current models of WM gating to encompass LTM information, and outline a new functional WM architecture.

Extended Emulation Theory

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Rade
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Weak Form ◽  
External Input ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Abstract Thought ◽  
Thought Patterns ◽  
Stored Information ◽  
Short Term Prediction ◽  
The Mind

Emulators are internal models, first evolved for prediction in perception to shorten the feedback on motor action. However, the selective pressure on perception is to improve the fitness of decision-making, driving the evolution of emulators towards context-dependent payoff representation and integration of action planning, not enhanced prediction as is generally assumed. The result is integrated perceptual, memory, representational, and imaginative capacities processing external input and stored internal input for decision-making, while simultaneously updating stored information. Perception, recall, imagination, theory of mind, and dreaming are the same process with different inputs. Learning proceeds via scaffolding on existing conceptual infrastructure, a weak form of embodied cognition. Discrete concepts are emergent from continuous dynamics and are in a perceptual, not representational, format. Language is also in perceptual format and enables precise abstract thought. In sum, what was initially a primitive system for short-term prediction in perception has evolved to perform abstract thought, store and retrieve memory, understand others, hold embedded action plans, build stable narratives, simulate scenarios, and integrate context dependence into perception. Crucially, emulators co-evolved with the emergence of societies, producing a mind-society system in which emulators are dysfunctional unless integrated into a society, which enables their complexity. The Target Emulator System, evolved initially for honest signaling, produces the emergent dynamics of the mind-society system and spreads variation-testing of behavior and thought patterns across a population. The human brain is the most dysfunctional in isolation, but the most effective given its context.

Continuous Decisions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seng Bum Michael Yoo ◽  
Benjamin Hayden ◽  
John Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Control Theory ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Microeconomic Theory ◽  
Engineering Control ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Academic Study

Humans and other animals evolved to make decisions that extend over time with continuous and ever-changing options. Nonetheless, the academic study of decision-making is mostly limited to the simple case of choice between two options. Here we advocate that the study of choice should expand to include continuous decisions. Continuous decisions, by our definition, involve a continuum of possible responses and take place over an extended period of time during which the response is continuously subject to modification. In most continuous decisions, the range of options can fluctuate and is affected by recent responses, making consideration of reciprocal feedback between choices and the environment essential. The study of continuous decisions raises new questions, such as how abstract processes of valuation and comparison are co-implemented with action planning and execution, how we simulate the large number of possible futures our choices lead to, and how our brains employ hierarchical structure to make choices more efficiently. While microeconomic theory has proven invaluable for discrete decisions, we propose that engineering control theory may serve as a better foundation for continuous ones. And while the concept of value has proven foundational for discrete decisions, goal states and policies may prove more useful for continuous ones.

MONITORING THE ATTITUDE OF THE POPULATION TO PROBLEMS OF URBAN ENVIRONMENT FOR SITUATION-AL CENTERS OF A SMART CITY

2019 ◽  
pp. 51-54
Author(s):  
D. Verzilin ◽  
T. Maximova ◽  
I. Sokolova
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Smart City ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Online Activity ◽  
Operational Decision Making ◽  
Alternative Sources ◽  
Intelligent Information ◽  
State Of The Environment ◽  
Active Citizen

Goal. The purpose of the study was to search for alternative sources of information on popu-lation’s preferences and response to problems and changes in the urban environment for use in the operational decision-making at situational centers. Materials and methods. The authors used data from search queries with keywords, data on communities in social networks, data from subject forums, and official statistics. Methods of statistical data analysis were applied. Results. The analysis of thematic online activity of the population was performed. The re-sults reflected the interest in the state of the environment, the possibility of distance learning and work, are presented. It was reasoned that measurements of population’s thematic online activity let identify needs and analyze the real-time response to changes in the urban envi-ronment. Such an approach to identifying the needs of the population can be used in addition to the platforms “Active Citizen” of the Smart City project. Conclusions. An analysis of data on online activity of the population for decision-making at situational centers is more operational, flexible and representative, as compared with the use of tools of those platforms. Such an analysis can be used as an alternative to sociological surveys, as it saves time and money. When making management decisions using intelligent information services, it is necessary to take into account the needs of the population, reflect-ed in its socio-economic activity in cyberspace.

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