scholarly journals Choice History Bias in Intertemporal Choice

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Schoemann ◽  
Stefan Scherbaum
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Path Dependence ◽  
Intertemporal Choice ◽  
Residual Activity ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
Inter Trial Interval ◽  
Decision Environment ◽  
Actual Decision

Human decision making is prone to many biases that either result from properties of the actual decision or from properties of the decision environment. We investigated the influence of the choice history on the actual decision in the domain of intertemporal choice, known as choice history bias from perceptual decision making. Over a series of three experiments, we demonstrate that the choice history bias also operates in intertemporal choice, but only under specific circumstances. We identified the inter-trial interval to be a determinant of the bias. Our results corroborate recent findings investigating path-dependence of perceptual and preferential decisions, and consolidate the overall mechanistic interpretation that the choice history bias arises due to residual activity in the neural system. Hence, our study bears two implications:First, models of intertemporal choice need to consider the dependency of choices across trials; second, the study of intertemporal choices empirically asks for considering this path-dependence to avoid biased conclusions about individual choices.

scholarly journals A divisive model of evidence accumulation explains uneven weighting of evidence over time

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Waitsang Keung ◽  
Todd A. Hagen ◽  
Robert C. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Total Activity ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Evidence Accumulation ◽  
Integration Kernel ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Divisive Normalization ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Over Time

SummaryDivisive normalization has long been used to account for computations in various neural processes and behaviours. The model proposes that inputs into a neural system are divisively normalized by the total activity of the system. More recently, dynamical versions of divisive normalization have been shown to account for how neural activity evolves over time in value-based decision making. Despite its ubiquity, divisive normalization has not been studied in decisions that require evidence to be integrated over time. Such decisions are important when we do not have all the information available at once. A key feature of such decisions is how evidence is weighted over time, known as the integration ‘kernel’. Here we provide a formal expression for the integration kernel in divisive normalization, and show that divisive normalization can quantitatively account for the perceptual decision making behaviour of 133 human participants, performing as well as the state-of-the-art Drift Diffusion Model, the predominant model for perceptual evidence accumulation.

scholarly journals Risk-taking bias in human decision-making is encoded via a right–left brain push–pull system

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (4) ◽  
pp. 1404-1413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Sacré ◽  
Matthew S. D. Kerr ◽  
Sandya Subramanian ◽  
Zachary Fitzgerald ◽  
Kevin Kahn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Risk Taking ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Subcortical Structures ◽  
Pull System ◽  
Left Brain ◽  
Depth Electrodes ◽  
Human Decision ◽  
The Right

A person’s decisions vary even when options stay the same, like when a gambler changes bets despite constant odds of winning. Internal bias (e.g., emotion) contributes to this variability and is shaped by past outcomes, yet its neurobiology during decision-making is not well understood. To map neural circuits encoding bias, we administered a gambling task to 10 participants implanted with intracerebral depth electrodes in cortical and subcortical structures. We predicted the variability in betting behavior within and across patients by individual bias, which is estimated through a dynamical model of choice. Our analysis further revealed that high-frequency activity increased in the right hemisphere when participants were biased toward risky bets, while it increased in the left hemisphere when participants were biased away from risky bets. Our findings provide electrophysiological evidence that risk-taking bias is a lateralized push–pull neural system governing counterintuitive and highly variable decision-making in humans.

scholarly journals Neurocognitive processing efficiency for non-alarm rather than alarm signaling in human scream calls

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sascha Frühholz ◽  
Joris Dietziker ◽  
Matthias Staib ◽  
Wiebke Trost
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Perceptual Sensitivity ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Implicit Processing ◽  
Processing Efficiency ◽  
Neural Signal ◽  
Alarm Signaling ◽  
Processing Bias

ABSTRACTAcross many species, scream calls signal the affective significance of events to other agents. Scream calls were often supposed to be of generic alarming and fearful nature to signal potential threats including their instantaneous, involuntary, and accurate recognition by perceivers. However, scream calls are more diverse in their affective signaling nature than being limited to fearfully alarm a threat, and thus the broader sociobiological relevance of various scream types is unclear. Here we used four different psychoacoustic, perceptual decision-making, and neuroimaging experiments in humans to demonstrate, first, the existence of at least six generic and psycho-acoustically distinctive types of scream calls of both an alarming and a non-alarming nature, rather than being limited to only screams caused by fear or aggression. Second, based on perceptual and processing sensitivity measures for decision-making during scream recognition, we found that alarming screams (with some exceptions) were overall discriminated the worst, were responded to the slowest and were associated with the lower perceptual sensitivity for their recognition compared with non-alarm screams. Third, the neural processing of alarm compared with non-alarm screams during an implicit processing task elicited only minimal neural signal and connectivity in perceivers, contrary to the frequent assumption of a threat processing bias of the primate neural system. These findings show that scream calls are more diverse in their signaling and communicative nature in humans and that especially non-alarming screams, and positive screams in particular, seem to have higher efficiency in the cognitive, neural, and communicative processing in humans.

scholarly journals Neurocognitive processing efficiency for discriminating human non-alarm rather than alarm scream calls

PLoS Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. e3000751
Author(s):  
Sascha Frühholz ◽  
Joris Dietziker ◽  
Matthias Staib ◽  
Wiebke Trost
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Neural System ◽  
Neural Processing ◽  
Perceptual Sensitivity ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Implicit Processing ◽  
Processing Efficiency ◽  
Threat Processing ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Processing Bias

Across many species, scream calls signal the affective significance of events to other agents. Scream calls were often thought to be of generic alarming and fearful nature, to signal potential threats, with instantaneous, involuntary, and accurate recognition by perceivers. However, scream calls are more diverse in their affective signaling nature than being limited to fearfully alarming a threat, and thus the broader sociobiological relevance of various scream types is unclear. Here we used 4 different psychoacoustic, perceptual decision-making, and neuroimaging experiments in humans to demonstrate the existence of at least 6 psychoacoustically distinctive types of scream calls of both alarming and non-alarming nature, rather than there being only screams caused by fear or aggression. Second, based on perceptual and processing sensitivity measures for decision-making during scream recognition, we found that alarm screams (with some exceptions) were overall discriminated the worst, were responded to the slowest, and were associated with a lower perceptual sensitivity for their recognition compared with non-alarm screams. Third, the neural processing of alarm compared with non-alarm screams during an implicit processing task elicited only minimal neural signal and connectivity in perceivers, contrary to the frequent assumption of a threat processing bias of the primate neural system. These findings show that scream calls are more diverse in their signaling and communicative nature in humans than previously assumed, and, in contrast to a commonly observed threat processing bias in perceptual discriminations and neural processes, we found that especially non-alarm screams, and positive screams in particular, seem to have higher efficiency in speeded discriminations and the implicit neural processing of various scream types in humans.

Discarding optimality: Throwing out the baby with the bathwater?

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Simen ◽  
Fuat Balcı
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Reward Rate ◽  
Perceptual Decision ◽  
Standard Observer ◽  
Rate Maximization ◽  
Reward Rate Maximization ◽  
Descriptive Standard ◽  
Observer Model

AbstractRahnev & Denison (R&D) argue against normative theories and in favor of a more descriptive “standard observer model” of perceptual decision making. We agree with the authors in many respects, but we argue that optimality (specifically, reward-rate maximization) has proved demonstrably useful as a hypothesis, contrary to the authors’ claims.

LPCD framework: Analytical tool or psychological model?

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Danks
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Mathematical Framework ◽  
Bayesian Decision ◽  
Perceptual Decision Making ◽  
Psychological Model ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Psychological Theories ◽  
Target Article ◽  
Bayesian Decision Making

AbstractThe target article uses a mathematical framework derived from Bayesian decision making to demonstrate suboptimal decision making but then attributes psychological reality to the framework components. Rahnev & Denison's (R&D) positive proposal thus risks ignoring plausible psychological theories that could implement complex perceptual decision making. We must be careful not to slide from success with an analytical tool to the reality of the tool components.

Evaluating Human Decision-Making Theories With Monkey Data

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott D. Brown ◽  
Pete Cassey ◽  
Andrew Heathcote ◽  
Roger Ratcliff
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Decision

History among the Junipers: Hosea 14:2–10 as Metahistoriography

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-116
Author(s):  
Mark W. Hamilton
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Moral Formation ◽  
Divine Agency ◽  
Human Decision

Abstract The dual endings of Hosea promoted reflection on Israel’s history as the movement from destruction to restoration based on Yhwh’s gracious decision for Israel. It thus clarifies the endings of the prior sections of the book (chs. 3 and 11) by locating Israel’s future in the realm of Yhwh’s activities. The final ending (14:10) balances the theme of divine agency in 14:2–9 with the recognition of human decision-making and moral formation as aspects of history as well. The endings of Hosea thus offer a good example of metahistoriography, a text that uses non-historiographic techniques to speak of the movements of history.

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