scholarly journals Does risk-sensitivity transfer across movements?

2013 ◽  
Vol 109 (7) ◽  
pp. 1866-1875 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan K. O'Brien ◽  
Alaa A. Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Risk Sensitivity ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Arm Reaching ◽  
Seeking Behavior

An intriguing finding in motor control studies is the marked effect of risk on movement decision making. However, there are inconsistent reports of risk-sensitivity across different movements and tasks, with both risk-seeking and risk-averse behavior observed. This raises the question of whether risk-sensitivity in movement decision making is context dependent and specific to the movement or task being performed. We investigated whether risk-sensitivity transfers between dissimilar movements within a single task. Healthy young adults made arm-reaching movements or whole-body leaning movements to move a cursor as close to the edge of a virtual cliff as possible without moving beyond the edge. They received points on the basis of the cursor's final proximity to the cliff edge. Risk was manipulated by increasing the point penalty associated with the cliff region and/or adding Gaussian noise to the cursor. We compared subjects' movement endpoints with endpoints predicted by a subject-specific, risk-neutral model of movement planning. Subjects demonstrated risk-seeking behavior in both movements that was consistent across risk environments, moving closer to the cliff than the model predicted. However, subjects were significantly more risk-seeking in whole-body movements. Our results present the first evidence of risk-sensitivity in whole-body movements. They also demonstrate that the direction of risk-sensitivity (i.e., risk-seeking or risk-averse) is similar between arm-reaching and whole-body movements, although degree of risk-sensitivity did not transfer from one movement to another. This finding has important implications for the ability of quantitative descriptions of decision making to generalize across movements and, ultimately, decision-making contexts.

Nitrogen-Fixing Winter Cover Crops and Production Risk: A Case Study for No-Tillage Corn

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
James A. Larson ◽  
Roland K. Roberts ◽  
Donald D. Tyler ◽  
Bob N. Duck ◽  
Stephen P. Slinsky
Keyword(s):  
Cover Crops ◽  
Stochastic Dominance ◽  
Nitrogen Fertilization ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Production Risk ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Seeking Behavior ◽  
Net Revenue ◽  
Applied Nitrogen

AbstractWinter legumes can substitute for applied nitrogen fertilization of corn. Stochastic dominance was used to order net revenues from legume and applied nitrogen alternatives. Stochastic dominance orderings indicate that systems combining vetch with low applied nitrogen fertilization (50 and 100 pounds/acre, respectively) were risk inefficient. By contrast, vetch and 150 pounds/acre applied nitrogen maximized expected net revenue and was risk efficient for a wide range of risk-averse and risk-seeking behavior. Farmers with these risk attitudes may not reduce applied nitrogen if they switch to a vetch cover. Extremely risk-averse or risk-seeking farmers would not prefer winter legumes.

STOCHASTIC DOMINANCE AND BEHAVIOR TOWARDS RISK: THE MARKET FOR ISHARES

2012 ◽  
Vol 07 (01) ◽  
pp. 1250005 ◽  
Author(s):  
DOMINIC GASBARRO ◽  
WING-KEUNG WONG ◽  
J. KENTON ZUMWALT
Keyword(s):  
Stochastic Dominance ◽  
Utility Functions ◽  
Investor Behavior ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Bull Markets ◽  
Seeking Behavior ◽  
Return Distributions ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Positive Return

Prospect theory suggests that risk seeking can occur when investors face losses and thus an S-shaped utility function can be useful in explaining investor behavior. Using stochastic dominance procedures, Post and Levy (2015) find evidence of reverse S-shaped utility functions. This is consistent with investors exhibiting risk-seeking tendencies in bull markets and risk aversion in bear markets. We use both ascending and descending stochastic dominance procedures to test for risk-averse and risk-seeking behavior. By partitioning iShares' return distributions into negative and positive return regions, we find evidence of all four utility functions: concave, convex, S-shaped and reverse S-shaped.

scholarly journals Wireless recording from unrestrained monkeys reveals motor goal encoding beyond immediate reach in frontoparietal cortex

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Berger ◽  
Naubahar S. Agha ◽  
Alexander Gail
Keyword(s):  
Broad Band ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Frontoparietal Network ◽  
Markerless Motion Capture ◽  
System Neuroscience ◽  
Reach Movements

AbstractSystem neuroscience of motor cognition regarding the space beyond immediate reach mandates free, yet experimentally controlled movements. We present an experimental environment (Reach Cage) and a versatile visuo-haptic interaction system (MaCaQuE) for investigating goal-directed whole-body movements of unrestrained monkeys. Two rhesus monkeys conducted instructed walk-and-reach movements towards targets flexibly positioned in the cage. We tracked 3D multi-joint arm and head movements using markerless motion capture. Movements show small trial-to-trial variability despite being unrestrained. We wirelessly recorded 192 broad-band neural signals from three cortical sensorimotor areas simultaneously. Single unit activity is selective for different reach and walk-and-reach movements. Walk-and-reach targets could be decoded from premotor and parietal but not motor cortical activity during movement planning. The Reach Cage allows systems-level sensorimotor neuroscience studies with full-body movements in a configurable 3D spatial setting with unrestrained monkeys. We conclude that the primate frontoparietal network encodes reach goals beyond immediate reach during movement planning.

scholarly journals Optimizing motor decision-making through competition with opponents

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keiji Ota ◽  
Mamoru Tanae ◽  
Kotaro Ishii ◽  
Ken Takiyama
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Optimal Decision ◽  
Fine Motor ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Competitive Game ◽  
Ski Jumping ◽  
Human Motor ◽  
Optimal Decision Making

AbstractAlthough optimal decision-making is essential for sports performance and fine motor control, it has been repeatedly confirmed that humans show a strong risk-seeking bias, selecting a risky strategy over an optimal solution. Despite such evidence, the ideal method to promote optimal decision-making remains unclear. Here, we propose that interactions with other people can influence motor decision-making and improve risk-seeking bias. We developed a competitive reaching game (a variant of the “chicken game”) in which aiming for greater rewards increased the risk of no reward and subjects competed for the total reward with their opponent. The game resembles situations in sports, such as a penalty kick in soccer, service in tennis, the strike zone in baseball, or take-off in ski jumping. In five different experiments, we demonstrated that, at the beginning of the competitive game, the subjects robustly switched their risk-seeking strategy to a risk-averse strategy. Following the reversal of the strategy, the subjects achieved optimal decision-making when competing with risk-averse opponents. This optimality was achieved by a non-linear influence of an opponent’s decisions on a subject’s decisions. These results suggest that interactions with others can alter human motor decision strategies and that competition with a risk-averse opponent is key for optimizing motor decision-making.

Too Much to Lose: The Influence of Emotional Attachment on Risk Aversion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy Lisheng Chan
Keyword(s):  
Risk Aversion ◽  
Loss Aversion ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Emotional Attachment ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Seeking Behavior ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Loss Frame ◽  
Gain Frame ◽  
Mean Risk

Current literature suggests that the generalizability of the loss aversion hypothesis and in tandem risk aversion and framing effects may be less stable than previously specified. Hence, the current study seeks to investigate emotional attachment as a potential moderator of loss and subsequently risk aversion, helping inform both fields of economics and psychology in driving better policy and decision-making. 64 Temasek Polytechnic students, aged 16-23, were manipulated with either high or low emotional attachment towards an item and presented with an adapted Asian Disease Paradigm (Tversky & Kahneman, 1981) in either a gain or loss frame as a measure of the individual’s mean risk rating. ANOVA analysis revealed the stability of the loss aversion hypothesis identified in past literature – risk-averse behavior increased when a gain frame was presented, and risk-seeking behavior increased when a loss frame was presented. Critically, emotional attachment was found to moderate loss and risk aversion, validating past theoretical derivations (Ariely, Huber, & Wertenbroch, 2005; Novemsky & Kahneman, 2005): when emotional attachment was higher towards an item, participants displayed more risk-seeking behavior and more risk-averse behavior when in the context of losses and gains respectively, and displayed less risk-seeking and risk-averse behavior when they were less emotionally attached to an item in the same context of a gamble. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed in the context of nudging.

scholarly journals How risk-seeking are people when facing a sure loss? Financial decision-making as a convenient conceptual framework

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emir Efendic ◽  
Olivier Corneille ◽  
Catherine D'Hondt ◽  
Rudy De Winne
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Financial Decision Making ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Expected Outcome ◽  
Financial Decision ◽  
Loss Tolerance ◽  
Expected Outcomes

Research is surprisingly scarce on how people react to the prospect of a sure loss. Do they seek risk or focus on what is left to be saved? We addressed this question in two experiments relying on a financial decision-making framework. Specifically, we asked participants to allocate money between two options: i) a loss option where, for sure, they would end up with less than allocated, or ii) a mixed gamble with a positive expected outcome, but also the possibility of an even larger loss. Participants made multiple choices with varied sizes of sure losses or expected outcomes and, for the majority of choices, were either risk-averse or indifferent. Our findings indicate a surprisingly large tolerance for sure losses at the expense of mixed gambles yielding better expected outcomes. We discuss the implications of this sure-loss tolerance for psychological research.

scholarly journals On the convergent validity of risk sensitivity measures

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Radulescu ◽  
Katharine Holmes ◽  
Yael Niv
Keyword(s):  
Convergent Validity ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Amazon Mechanical Turk ◽  
Risk Sensitivity ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Measures Of Risk ◽  
Continuous Measures

There are a number of well-accepted ways to measure risk sensitivity, with researchers often making conclusions about individual differences based on a single task. Even though long-standing observations suggest that how risky outcomes are presented changes people's behavior, it is unclear whether risk sensitivity is a unitary trait that can be measured by any one of these instruments. To directly answer this question, we administered three tasks commonly used to elicit risk sensitivity within-subject to a large sample of participants on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Our findings revealed high individual variability in each measure, with little evidence of consistency among different tasks: many participants who were classified as "risk-averse'' in one task were "risk-seeking'' in another, and we observed no significant correlations between continuous measures of risk sensitivity as measured in each of the tasks. Our results cast doubt on the pervasive assumption that risk paradigms measure a single underlying trait, and suggest instead that behavior in risky situations is the result of heterogeneous, interacting, and possibly task-dependent cognitive mechanisms.

scholarly journals Banks’ Interest Rate Risk and Search for Yield: A Theoretical Rationale and Some Empirical Evidence

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 330-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Memmel ◽  
Atılım Seymen ◽  
Max Teichert
Keyword(s):  
Interest Rate ◽  
Interest Rate Risk ◽  
Expected Returns ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Expected Return ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Rate Risk ◽  
Seeking Behavior ◽  
The Common ◽  
Relationship Of

Abstract We investigate German banks’ exposure to interest rate risk. In finance, higher demand for a risky asset is typically associated with higher expected return. However, employing a utility function which implies both risk-averse and risk-seeking behavior depending on the level of profits, we show that this relationship may get weaker and even change its sign at low profit levels. For the period 2005-14, we find not only the common positive relationship of higher expected returns and rising interest rate exposure but also that this relationship does become weaker with falling operative income, its sign eventually changing.

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