scholarly journals Cuing both positive and negative episodic foresight reduces delay discounting but does not affect risk-taking

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 1998-2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Bulley ◽  
Beyon Miloyan ◽  
Gillian V Pepper ◽  
Matthew J Gullo ◽  
Julie D Henry ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Delay Discounting ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Future Scenarios ◽  
Balloon Analogue Risk Task ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Monetary Choice Questionnaire

Humans frequently create mental models of the future, allowing outcomes to be inferred in advance of their occurrence. Recent evidence suggests that imagining positive future events reduces delay discounting (the devaluation of reward with time until its receipt), while imagining negative future events may increase it. Here, using a sample of 297 participants, we experimentally assess the effects of cued episodic simulation of positive and negative future scenarios on decision-making in the context of both delay discounting (monetary choice questionnaire) and risk-taking (balloon-analogue risk task). Participants discounted the future less when cued to imagine positive and negative future scenarios than they did when cued to engage in control neutral imagery. There were no effects of experimental condition on risk-taking. Thus, although these results replicate previous findings suggesting episodic future simulation can reduce delay discounting, they indicate that this effect is not dependent on the valence of the thoughts, and does not generalise to all other forms of “impulsive” decision-making. We discuss various interpretations of these results, and suggest avenues for further research on the role of prospection in decision-making.

scholarly journals The Future is Less Concrete than the Present: A Neural Signature of the Concreteness of Prospective Thought Is Modulated by Temporal Proximity during Intertemporal Decision-Making

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sangil Lee ◽  
Trishala Parthasarathi ◽  
Nicole Cooper ◽  
Gal Zauberman ◽  
Caryn Lerman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Delay Discounting ◽  
Food Choices ◽  
Healthy Food ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Unobtrusive Measure ◽  
The Future ◽  
Future Events ◽  
Neural Signature ◽  
Future Thought

AbstractWhy do people discount future rewards? Multiple theories in psychology argue that future events are imagined less concretely than immediate events, thereby diminishing their perceived value. Here we provide neuroscientific evidence for this proposal. First, we construct a neural signature of the concreteness of prospective thought, using an fMRI dataset where the concreteness of imagined future events is orthogonal to their valence by design. Then, we apply this neural signature in two additional fMRI datasets, each using a different delay discounting task, to show that neural measures of concreteness decline as rewards are delayed farther into the future.Significance StatementPeople tend to devalue, or discount, outcomes in the future relative to those that are more immediate. This tendency is evident in people’s difficulty in making healthy food choices or saving money for retirement. Several psychological theories propose that discounting occurs because delayed outcomes are perceived less concretely that more immediate ones. Here we build a brain decoder for the concreteness of future thought and use this unobtrusive measure to show that outcomes are processed less concretely as they occur farther into the future.

The Moderating Role of Personal Relevance on Differential Priming of Anxiety and Sadness on Perceived Travel Risk: A Replication

2009 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 500-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen-Bin Chiou ◽  
Ming-Hsu Chang ◽  
Chien-Lung Chen
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Personal Relevance ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Mood Repair ◽  
Neutral Mood ◽  
Motivational Influences ◽  
Relevance Condition ◽  
Moderating Role

Raghunathan and Pham conducted a pioneer study in 1999 on the motivational influences of anxiety and sadness on decision making and indicated that anxiety would motivate individuals to be risk averse, whereas sadness would motivate individuals to be risk taking. A replication study was employed in the domain of perceived travel risk. Compared to participants in a neutral mood, anxious participants showed higher perceived travel risk than sad participants. Moreover, the differential effect of anxiety and sadness on perceived travel risk was only pronounced under the high personal relevance condition, in which participants made personal decisions and expected that they would be affected by the outcomes. In general, the results extend the notion proposed by Raghunathan and Pham suggesting that travelers' implicit goals primed by anxiety or sadness used for mood-repair purposes appear to be moderated by personal relevance.

scholarly journals Mnemicity vs. Temporality: Distinguishing between components of episodic representations

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes Mahr
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Orientation ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Past ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
The Future ◽  
Event Simulations

Human beings regularly 'mentally travel' to past and future times in memory and imagination. In theory, whether an event is remembered or imagined (its ‘mnemicity’) underspecifies whether it is oriented towards the past or the future (its ‘temporality’). However, it remains unclear to what extent the temporal orientation of such episodic simulations is cognitively represented separately from their status as memories or imagination. To address this question, we investigated whether episodic simulations are more easily distinguishable in memory by virtue of their temporal orientation or their mnemicity. In three experiments (N = 360), participants were asked to generate and later recall events differing along the lines of temporal orientation (past/future) and mnemicity (remembered/imagined). Across all of our experiments, we consistently found that participants were more likely to confuse in recall event simulations that shared the same temporal orientation rather than the same mnemicity. These results show that the temporal orientation of episodic representations can be cognitively represented separately from their mnemicity and have implications for debates about the role of temporality in episodic simulation.

scholarly journals Reducing future fears by suppressing the brain mechanisms underlying episodic simulation

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (52) ◽  
pp. E8492-E8501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland G. Benoit ◽  
Daniel J. Davies ◽  
Michael C. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex ◽  
Episodic Simulation ◽  
Dorsolateral Prefrontal ◽  
Future Events ◽  
The Right ◽  
Development Of Anxiety ◽  
The Brain

Imagining future events conveys adaptive benefits, yet recurrent simulations of feared situations may help to maintain anxiety. In two studies, we tested the hypothesis that people can attenuate future fears by suppressing anticipatory simulations of dreaded events. Participants repeatedly imagined upsetting episodes that they feared might happen to them and suppressed imaginings of other such events. Suppressing imagination engaged the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which modulated activation in the hippocampus and in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Consistent with the role of the vmPFC in providing access to details that are typical for an event, stronger inhibition of this region was associated with greater forgetting of such details. Suppression further hindered participants’ ability to later freely envision suppressed episodes. Critically, it also reduced feelings of apprehensiveness about the feared scenario, and individuals who were particularly successful at down-regulating fears were also less trait-anxious. Attenuating apprehensiveness by suppressing simulations of feared events may thus be an effective coping strategy, suggesting that a deficiency in this mechanism could contribute to the development of anxiety.

scholarly journals Maintaining the Role of Humans in the Forecast Process: Analyzing the Psyche of Expert Forecasters

2007 ◽  
Vol 88 (12) ◽  
pp. 1893-1898 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil A. Stuart ◽  
David M. Schultz ◽  
Gary Klein
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Information Technology ◽  
Weather Forecasting ◽  
Time Constraints ◽  
Learning Gap ◽  
Weather Forecasters ◽  
The Future ◽  
Mental Modeling ◽  
And Training

The Second Forum on the Future Role of the Human in the Forecast Process occurred on 2–3 August 2005 at the American Meteorological Society's Weather Analysis and Forecasting Conference in Washington, D.C. The forum consisted of three sessions. This paper discusses the second session, featuring three presentations on the cognitive and psychological aspects of expert weather forecasters. The first presentation discussed the learning gap between students (goal seekers) and teachers (knowledge seekers)—a similar gap exists between forecasters and researchers. In order to most effectively train students or forecasters, teachers must be able to teach across this gap using some methods described within. The second presentation discussed the heuristics involved in weather forecasting and decision making under time constraints and uncertainty. The final presentation classified the spectrum of forecasters from intuitive scientists to the disengaged. How information technology can best be adapted so as not to inhibit intuitive scientists from their mental modeling of weather scenarios is described. Forecasters must continuously refine their skills through education and training, and be aware of the heuristic contributions to the forecast process, to maintain expertise and have the best chance of ensuring a dynamic role in the future forecast process.

scholarly journals The Role of Executive Function in Adolescent Adaptive Risk-Taking on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (7) ◽  
pp. 566-580 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melanie A. Blair ◽  
Ashley Moyett ◽  
Angelica A. Bato ◽  
Pamela DeRosse ◽  
Katherine H. Karlsgodt
Keyword(s):  
Executive Function ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Balloon Analogue Risk Task

Directors’ disqualification: insolvency practitioners and the decision-making process

Legal Studies ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-305 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sally Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Secretary Of State ◽  
The Future ◽  
Company Directors ◽  
The Subject

The Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 (CDDA) instituted, inter alia, a mechanism whereby directors of failed companies can be disqualified from holding office in the future as the result of an application to the court by the Secretary of State, or in the case of compulsory liquidators, the official receive and a subsequent finding by the court that the director is unfit. The operation and effect of the CDDA has been the subject of speculation in the national press, other media and comment from insolvency practitioners since its inception. Most of this comment has focused on the role of the DTI and on its perceived failure to take steps to disqualify directors in sufficient numbers.

scholarly journals The role of conviction and narrative in decision-making under radical uncertainty

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 501-523 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Tuckett ◽  
Milena Nikolic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Causal Models ◽  
Approach And Avoidance ◽  
Rules Of Thumb ◽  
The Future ◽  
Radical Uncertainty

We propose conviction narrative theory (CNT) to broaden decision-making theory in order to better understand and analyse how subjectively means–end rational actors cope in contexts in which the traditional assumptions in decision-making models fail to hold. Conviction narratives enable actors to draw on their beliefs, causal models, and rules of thumb to identify opportunities worth acting on, to simulate the future outcome of their actions, and to feel sufficiently convinced to act. The framework focuses on how narrative and emotion combine to allow actors to deliberate and to select actions that they think will produce the outcomes they desire. It specifies connections between particular emotions and deliberative thought, hypothesising that approach and avoidance emotions evoked during narrative simulation play a crucial role. Two mental states, Divided and Integrated, in which narratives can be formed or updated, are introduced and used to explain some familiar problems that traditional models cannot.

Derrida and Policy: Is Deconstruction Really a Social Science?

Derrida Today ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin McQuillan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Political Decision ◽  
Future Role ◽  
Political Policy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Political Decision Making

How might we begin to think about deconstruction in relation to the formulation of political policy? Once we begin to ask this question the whole idea of policy as such is put in question and conversely the limitations of philosophy as the basis for political decision making quickly become apparent. Through a consideration of this problem and by reference to a number of key tropes in Derrida's later writings, this essay begins the task of thinking about the deconstruction of policy and of asking what the future role of deconstructive thought might be.

scholarly journals The Role of Emotions in Economic Decision Making

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aslı Öztopçu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Individual Decision ◽  
Cognitive Error ◽  
Economic Decisions ◽  
Economic Decision Making ◽  
Individual Effects

Decision making points out to the consequences of past or future behaviors. An individual has to make decisions on all subjects throughout his life. An important part of these decisions are economic decisions. Individuals make decisions such as renting, buying, buying new goods, migrating, changing jobs, making investments, enterprise, choosing holidays, evaluating savings. Non-rational decisions are observed although individuals should make rational decision, according to mainstream economics. In this study, the effects of the emotions that form the basis of psychology, such as time, option constraint, opportunities, risk taking, risk aversion, procrastination, rush, or uncertainty, inconsistency, intuitive movement, cognitive error in the decision-making process of individuals are discussed. For this purpose, the characteristics of decision-making process, individual effects of cognitive of emotions, individual decision making theorems in economic theory and behavioral economics literature are mentioned. It is thought that the role of emotions that shape behaviors should be known in the regulation of economic life that is determined according to human behavior.

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