scholarly journals Revisiting the Neural Architecture of Decision-Making: Univariate and Multivariate Evidence for System-Based Models in Adolescence

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
João F. Guassi Moreira ◽  
Adriana S. Méndez Leal ◽  
Yael H. Waizman ◽  
Natalie Saragosa-Harris ◽  
Emilia Ninova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Multivariate Pattern

AbstractSystem-based theories are a popular approach to explaining the psychology of human decision making. Such theories posit that decision-making is governed by interactions between different psychological processes that arbitrate amongst each other for control over behavior. To date, system-based theories have received inconsistent support at the neural level, leading some to question their veracity. Here we examine the possibility that prior attempts to evaluate system-based theories have been limited by their reliance on predicting brain activity from behavior, and seek to advance evaluations of system-based models through modeling approaches that predict behavior from brain activity. Using within-subject decision-level modeling of fMRI data from a risk-taking task in a sample of over 2000 decisions across 51 adolescents—a population in which decision-making processes are particularly dynamic and consequential—we find support for system-based theories of decision-making. In particular, neural activity in lateral prefrontal cortex and a multivariate pattern of cognitive control both predicted a reduced likelihood of making a risky decision, whereas increased activity in the ventral striatum—a region typically associated with valuation processes—predicted a greater likelihood of engaging in risk-taking. These results comprise the first formalized within-subjects neuroimaging test of system-based theories, garnering support for the notion that competing systems drive decision behaviors.Significance StatementDecision making is central to adaptive behavior. While dominant psychological theories of decision-making behavior have found empirical support, their neuroscientific implementations have received inconsistent support. This may in part be due to statistical approaches employed by prior neuroimaging studies of system-based theories. Here we use brain modeling—an approach that predicts behavior from brain activity—of univariate and multivariate neural activity metrics to better understand how neural components of psychological systems guide decision behavior. We found broad support for system-based theories such that that neural systems involved in cognitive control predicted a reduced likelihood to make risky decisions, whereas value-based systems predicted greater risk-taking propensity.

scholarly journals Modernizing Conceptions of Valuation and Cognitive-Control Deployment in Adolescent Risk Taking

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy T. Do ◽  
Paul B. Sharp ◽  
Eva H. Telzer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Control System ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Computational Model ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Expected Value ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Adolescent Risk ◽  
Risk Taking Behavior

Heightened risk taking in adolescence has long been attributed to valuation systems overwhelming the deployment of cognitive control. However, this explanation of why adolescents engage in risk taking is insufficient given increasing evidence that risk-taking behavior can be strategic and involve elevated cognitive control. We argue that applying the expected-value-of-control computational model to adolescent risk taking can clarify under what conditions control is elevated or diminished during risky decision-making. Through this lens, we review research examining when adolescent risk taking might be due to—rather than a failure of—effective cognitive control and suggest compelling ways to test such hypotheses. This effort can resolve when risk taking arises from an immaturity of the control system itself, as opposed to arising from differences in what adolescents value relative to adults. It can also identify promising avenues for channeling cognitive control toward adaptive outcomes in adolescence.

Modeling the Effects of Sleep Deprivation on Real-Time Risky Decision-Making

1998 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-334
Author(s):  
Joshua B. Hurwitz
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Time Of Day ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Distance Information ◽  
Driving Task ◽  
Response Choices

Increased real-time risk-taking under sleep loss could be marked by changes in risk perception or acceptance. Risk-perception processes are those involved in estimating real-time parameters such as the speeds and distances of hazardous objects. Risk-acceptance processes relate to response choices given risk estimates. Risk-taking under fatigue was studied using a simulated intersection-crossing driving task in which subjects decided when it was safe to cross an intersection as an oncoming car approached from the cross street. The subjects performed this task at 3-hour intervals over a 36-hour period without sleep. Results were modeled using a model of real-time risky decision making that has perceptual components that process speed, time and distance information, and a decisional component for accepting risk. Results showed that varying a parameter for the decisional component across sessions best accounted for variations in performance relating to time of day.

scholarly journals Heightened Adolescent Risk-Taking? Insights From Lab Studies on Age Differences in Decision-Making

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivy N. Defoe ◽  
Judith Semon Dubas ◽  
Daniel Romer
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Real World ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Neuropsychological Development ◽  
Integrative Framework ◽  
Adolescent Risk

Surveys concur that adolescents disproportionately engage in many real-world risk behaviors, compared with children and adults. Recently researchers have employed laboratory risky decision-making tasks to replicate this apparent heightened adolescent risk-taking. This review builds on the main findings of the first meta-analysis of such age differences in risky decision-making in the laboratory. Overall, although adolescents engage in more risky decision-making than adults, adolescents engage in risky decision-making equal to children. However, adolescents take fewer risks than children on tasks that allow the option of opting out of taking a risk. To reconcile findings on age differences in risk-taking in the real-world versus the laboratory, an integrative framework merges theories on neuropsychological development with ecological models that emphasize the importance of risk exposure in explaining age differences in risk-taking. Policy insights and recent developments are discussed.

scholarly journals Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) Are More Averse to Social Than Nonsocial Risk

2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah E. Calcutt ◽  
Darby Proctor ◽  
Sarah M. Berman ◽  
Frans B. M. de Waal
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Pan Troglodytes ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Trust Game ◽  
Risk Attitudes ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Emotional Factors ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Tit For Tat

Social risk is a domain of risk in which the costs, benefits, and uncertainty of an action depend on the behavior of another individual. Humans overvalue the costs of a socially risky decision when compared with that of purely economic risk. Here, we played a trust game with 8 female captive chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes) to determine whether this bias exists in one of our closest living relatives. A correlation between an individual’s social- and nonsocial-risk attitudes indicated stable individual variation, yet the chimpanzees were more averse to social than nonsocial risk. This indicates differences between social and economic decision making and emotional factors in social risk taking. In another experiment using the same paradigm, subjects played with several partners with whom they had varying relationships. Preexisting relationships did not impact the subjects’ choices. Instead, the apes used a tit-for-tat strategy and were influenced by the outcome of early interactions with a partner.

scholarly journals When imitating successful others fails: Accidentally successful exemplars inspire risky decisions and can hamper performance

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (6) ◽  
pp. 941-956
Author(s):  
Wijnand AP van Tilburg ◽  
Nikhila Mahadevan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Gambling Behaviour ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Regression To The Mean ◽  
Risky Behaviour ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
The Impact

We examined the impact of viewing exemplars on people’s behaviour in risky decision-making environments. Specifically, we tested if people disproportionally choose to view and then imitate the behaviour of successful (vs. unsuccessful) others, which in the case of risky decision-making increases risk-taking and can hamper performance. In doing so, our research tested how a fundamental social psychological process (social influence) interacts with a fundamental statistical phenomenon (regression to the mean) to produce biases in decision-making. Experiment 1 ( N = 96) showed that people indeed model their own behaviour after that of a successful exemplar, resulting in more risky behaviour and poorer outcomes. Experiment 2 ( N = 208) indicated that people disproportionately choose to examine and then imitate most successful versus least successful exemplars. Experiment 3 ( N = 381) replicated Experiment 2 in a context where participants were offered the freedom to examine any possible exemplar, or no exemplar whatsoever, and across different incentive conditions. The results have implications for decision-making in a broad range of social contexts, such as education, health, and finances where risk-taking can have detrimental outcomes, and they may be particularly helpful to understand the role of social influence in gambling behaviour.

Parental rearing behavior prospectively predicts adolescents’ risky decision-making and feedback-related electrical brain activity

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja S. Euser ◽  
Brittany E. Evans ◽  
Kirstin Greaves-Lord ◽  
Anja C. Huizink ◽  
Ingmar H.A. Franken
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Electrical Brain Activity ◽  
Parental Rearing

scholarly journals Dopaminergic drug effects on probability weighting during risky decision-making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karita E. Ojala ◽  
Lieneke K. Janssen ◽  
Mahur M. Hashemi ◽  
Monique H. M. Timmer ◽  
Dirk E. M. Geurts ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Prospect Theory ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Subjective Probability ◽  
Probability Weighting ◽  
Risky Decision Making ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Placebo Condition ◽  
Pathological Gamblers ◽  
Dopaminergic Drug

AbstractDopamine has been associated with risky decision-making, as well as with pathological gambling, a behavioural addiction characterized by excessive risk-taking behaviour. However, the specific mechanisms through which dopamine might act to foster risk-taking and pathological gambling remain elusive. Here we test the hypothesis that this might be achieved, in part, via modulation of subjective probability weighing during decision-making. Healthy controls (n = 21) and pathological gamblers (n = 16) played a decision-making task involving choices between sure monetary options and risky gambles both in the gain and loss domains. Each participant played the task twice, either under placebo or the dopamine D2/D3 receptor antagonist sulpiride, in a double-blind, counter-balanced, design. A prospect theory modelling approach was used to estimate subjective probability weighting and sensitivity to monetary outcomes. Consistent with prospect theory, we found that participants presented a distortion in the subjective weighting of probabilities, i.e. they overweighted low probabilities and underweighted moderate to high probabilities, both in the gain and loss domains. Compared with placebo, sulpiride attenuated this distortion in the gain domain. Across drugs, the groups did not differ in their probability weighting, although in the placebo condition, gamblers consistently underweighted losing probabilities. Overall, our results reveal that dopamine D2/D3 receptor antagonism modulates the subjective weighting of probabilities in the gain domain, in the direction of more objective, economically rational decision-making.Significance statementDopamine has been implicated in risky decision-making and gambling addiction, but the exact mechanisms underlying this influence remain partly elusive. Here we tested the hypothesis that dopamine modulates subjective probability weighting, by examining the effect of a dopaminergic drug on risk-taking behaviour, both in healthy individuals and pathological gamblers. We found that selectively blocking dopamine D2/D3 receptors diminished the typically observed distortion of winning probabilities, characterized by an overweighting of low probabilities and underweighting of high probabilities. This made participants more linear in their subjective estimation of probabilities, and thus more rational in their decision-making behaviour. Healthy participants and pathological gamblers did not differ in their risk-taking behaviour, except in the placebo condition in which gamblers consistently underweighted losing probabilities.

scholarly journals Spontaneous Blink Rate Correlates With Financial Risk Taking

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Sherman ◽  
Robert C Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Video Recording ◽  
Risk Attitude ◽  
Blink Rate ◽  
Strong Positive Correlation ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
Indirect Measure ◽  
General Role

AbstractDopamine has long been thought to play a role in risky decision-making, with higher tonic levels of dopamine associated with more risk seeking behavior. In this work, we aimed to shed more light on this relationship using spontaneous blink rate as an indirect measure of dopamine. In particular we used video recording to measure blink rate and a decision-making survey to measure risk taking in 45 participants. Consistent with previous work linking dopamine to risky decisions, we found a strong positive correlation between blink rate and the number of risky choices a participant made. This correlation was not dependent on age or gender and was identical for both gain and loss framing. This work suggests that dopamine plays a crucial and quite general role in determining risk attitude across the population and validates this simple method of probing dopamine for decision-making research.

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