Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Distractor effects in decision making are related to the individual's style of integrating choice attributes

The paper shows that individual differences in decision-making strategies (additive vs. multiplicative) correlate with how distractors affect decisions, with multiplicative users showing positive effects and additive users showing negative effects.

"Value" emerges from imperfect memory

This study shows that agents with imperfect memory can outperform those with perfect memory in decision-making tasks and generate value-based behaviors without calculating value.

Idiosyncratic choice bias and feedback-induced bias differ in their long-term dynamics

The paper compares the long-term dynamics of idiosyncratic choice bias and feedback-induced bias, finding that feedback-induced bias is transient while idiosyncratic bias remains stable.

A Tale of Two Environments: Divisive Normalization and the (In)Flexibility of Choice

This study shows humans use divisive normalization in two different choice environments, suggesting it is a fixed cognitive mechanism.

Attentional priority and limbic activity favor gains over losses

The paper investigates whether gains are prioritized over losses in perception and finds greater limbic activity for gains in fMRI studies.

Irrational choices via a curvilinear representational geometry for value

The paper shows that value is represented in a curved manifold in the vmPFC, leading to irrational decision-making when decoy options are worse in value.

A temporal gap in sensory streams amplifies the influence of subsequent input on decision making

The paper investigates decision making under intermittent information streams with temporal gaps, finding that participants disproportionately weight post-gap information, which traditional models cannot explain.

Brain activity of professional investors signals future stock performance

This study finds that brain activity in the nucleus accumbens of professional investors correlates with future stock performance, suggesting neuroforecasting may be feasible.

Multiple and subject-specific roles of uncertainty in reward-guided decision-making

This study identifies multiple individual and heuristic-based roles of uncertainty in human reward-guided decision-making using a novel bandit task.

Manipulating prior beliefs causally induces under- and overconfidence

The paper shows that manipulating prior beliefs about task performance affects confidence levels in perceptual decisions without changing actual performance.

Tracking subjects' strategies in behavioural choice experiments at trial resolution

This paper introduces a probabilistic method to track choice strategies in decision-making tasks at trial resolution, showing it identifies learning and exploratory strategies across species and synthetic agents.

Dynamic noise estimation: A generalized method for modeling noise fluctuations in decision-making

This paper introduces a method to dynamically estimate noise levels in decision-making tasks, improving model fit and parameter estimation compared to static noise assumptions.

The timescale and functional form of context-dependence during human value-learning

This study investigates how temporal and immediate context influence value coding during human learning and finds that temporal context modulates value representations, contradicting existing normalization theories.

"Bayesian anchoring" and the fourfold pattern of risk attitudes

This paper models decision-making under uncertainty using Bayesian anchoring to explain the fourfold pattern of risk attitudes and related effects observed in experiments.

Effort Foraging Task reveals positive correlation between individual differences in the cost of cognitive and physical effort in humans

The paper develops an Effort Foraging Task to measure cognitive and physical effort costs in humans and finds they are positively correlated.

Posterior parietal cortex is causally involved in reward valuation but not probability weighting during risky choice

This study shows that posterior parietal cortex stimulation affects risk aversion in decision-making but not probability weighting.

Decision bias and sampling asymmetry in reward-guided learning

This study shows that context-sensitive decision biases in reward-guided learning arise from sampling asymmetry during learning, not from representational biases at the choice stage.

Worth the work? Monkeys discount rewards by a subjective adapting effort cost

This paper shows monkeys adjust their reward-effort decisions based on subjective effort costs influenced by prior experience, using a subtractive model of effort disutility.

Monkeys exhibit human-like gaze biases in economic decisions

This study shows that macaque monkeys exhibit gaze biases in economic decisions similar to humans, supporting a shared mechanism across species.

Need for cognition moderates cognitive effort aversion

The paper investigates how individual differences in need for cognition influence the hedonic response to avoiding high-effort tasks.

A low dimensional manifold of human exploration and exploitation behavior reveals states of apathy and anxiety

The paper identifies a low-dimensional behavioral manifold that captures exploration-exploitation decision-making and links it to symptoms of apathy and anxiety.

Continuous Measures of Decision-Difficulty Captured Remotely: I. Mouse-tracking sensitivity extends to tablets and smartphones

This paper shows that touch-devices can sensitively capture decision-difficulty through mouse-tracking and touchscreen interactions across different devices.

Gambling on an empty stomach: Hunger modulates preferences for learned but not described risks

This study shows that hunger affects risk preferences more when risks are learned through experience than when they are explicitly described.

Evidence or Confidence: What is Really Monitored During a Decision?

This paper proposes a confidence-driven decision-making model that reinterprets confidence as the primary monitored variable during decisions, offering a more parsimonious explanation of existing findings.

Metacognitive Computations for Information Search: Confidence in Control

This paper explores how confidence influences information search by extending models of metacognition to show diverse relationships between action, confidence, and information seeking.

Systematic comparison of risky choices in humans and monkeys

This study compares risky choices between humans and monkeys, finding comparable decision-making patterns despite differences in subjective values.

How Occam's razor guides human decision-making

This study shows humans prefer simpler explanations for uncertain data, aligning with formal model selection theories that penalize excessive flexibility.

The trembling hand unraveled: the motor dynamics and neural sources of choice inconsistency

This study identifies two neural sources of noise contributing to inconsistent choice behavior through behavioral and neuroimaging analyses.

Clarifying the role of an unavailable distractor in human multiattribute choice

The paper investigates how an unavailable distractor influences multiattribute choice, revealing both positive and negative effects and proposing a model to explain these phenomena.

The shadowing effect of initial expectation on learning asymmetry

The paper investigates learning asymmetry in reinforcement learning by showing that initial value expectations influence how positive and negative prediction errors affect value updates and choices.