-
Cognitive Research: Principles and... Jul 2022The tendency to devaluate delayed rewards, a phenomenon referred to as 'discounting behaviour', has been studied by wide-ranging research examining individuals choosing...
The tendency to devaluate delayed rewards, a phenomenon referred to as 'discounting behaviour', has been studied by wide-ranging research examining individuals choosing between sooner but smaller or later but larger rewards. Despite the fact that many real-life choices are embedded in a social context, the question of whether or not social collaboration can have an impact on such choices has not been addressed empirically. With this research, we aimed to fill this gap experimentally by implementing a novel choice selection procedure in order to study the interactive dynamics between two participants. This selection procedure allowed us to dissect the sequence of decision-making into its elements, starting from the very first individual preference to the solution of possible conflicting preferences in the dyad. In Experiment 1, we studied group decision-making on classical intertemporal choices to reveal the possible benefit of social collaboration on discounting and identified that the knowledge of the social situation in collective decision-making causes a reduction in discounting. In a pre-registered Experiment 2, we compared classical intertemporal choices with choices in a gamified version of a discounting paradigm in which the participants had a real-time experience trial by trial and for which a normative reference was present. We found that collective decision-making had a substantial impact on intertemporal decision-making, but was shaped by different types of choices. Classical intertemporal choices were rather susceptible to the contextual factors of decision-making, whereas in the gamified version that included a normative reference the decisions were reliably influenced by social collaboration and resulted in a lower discounting. The results in this paradigm replicate our original findings from former research.
Topics: Decision Making; Delay Discounting; Humans; Reward; Social Environment; Time Factors
PubMed: 35900639
DOI: 10.1186/s41235-022-00422-5 -
Applied Neuropsychology. Child 2022Adaptive decision-making strategies are critical for dealing with the complexity of the social world. The present study investigated the use of decision-making...
Adaptive decision-making strategies are critical for dealing with the complexity of the social world. The present study investigated the use of decision-making strategies in preschoolers and their association to prosocial behavior and peer problems. Eighty-six preschoolers aged 3- and 4-years completed the preschool decision-making task (PGT), a child variant of the Iowa Gambling task . Win-stay/lose-shift responses along with exploration (consecutive choices from the advantageous deck) and exploitation (shifting between options) were examined. Preschoolers showed a range of strategies, with 4-year-olds adapting their approach as the game progressed and making better use of feedback in comparison to 3-year-olds. Children who differed in terms of choices from the advantageous deck were distinguished by different combinations of exploration and exploitation. Furthermore, unique combinations of decision-making strategies also distinguished children who were rated as high versus low in prosocial behavior as well as children rated as having a high versus low level of peer problems. The findings suggest that consideration of strategies used in decision-making tasks could provide useful insight in a clinical setting, particularly for populations with social difficulties.
Topics: Child; Child, Preschool; Decision Making; Gambling; Humans
PubMed: 34505556
DOI: 10.1080/21622965.2021.1973470 -
The European Journal of Neuroscience Jul 2022Evidence suggests that psychological stress has effects on decision making, but the results are inconsistent, and the influence of cortisol and other modulating factors... (Review)
Review
Evidence suggests that psychological stress has effects on decision making, but the results are inconsistent, and the influence of cortisol and other modulating factors remains unclear. Based on the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria, 18 studies carried out between 2015 and 2020 that examined the effects of psychological stress on decision making and measured cortisol levels were selected. Eight studies employed uncertainty-based economic tasks, five studies used decision-making tasks in hypothetical situations that can be encountered in real life or in a specific setting and five studies employed prosocial decision tasks. Seventeen studies assessed acute stress, and two assessed chronic stress; eight evaluated the influence of sex. Most of the studies that explored the association between stress and decision making using uncertainty-based economic tasks found statistically significant differences as a function of stress exposure and the cortisol response to stress, whereas most of the studies that employed non-economic decision-making tasks in hypothetical situations did not find statistically significant differences. When prosocial decision making was evaluated, more altruistic decisions were found after acute stress, and these decisions were positively associated with cortisol. Half of the studies that assessed the role of sex observed a greater impact on decision making after stress in women. Results suggest that it is important to consider modulating factors-the type of decision-making task, the cortisol response to stress, the characteristics of the psychological stressor or the subject's sex-when trying to understand psychosocial stress phenomena.
Topics: Decision Making; Female; Humans; Hydrocortisone; Stress, Psychological; Uncertainty
PubMed: 35589606
DOI: 10.1111/ejn.15721 -
Cirugia Espanola Jan 2023
Topics: Humans; Decision Making, Shared; Decision Making; Patient-Centered Care
PubMed: 35809786
DOI: 10.1016/j.cireng.2021.10.022 -
Zeitschrift Fur Evidenz, Fortbildung... Jun 2022Shared decision making has been on the policy agenda in the UK for at least twelve years, but it lacked a comprehensive approach to delivery. That has changed over the...
Shared decision making has been on the policy agenda in the UK for at least twelve years, but it lacked a comprehensive approach to delivery. That has changed over the past five years, and we can now see significant progress across all aspects of a comprehensive approach, including leadership at policy, professional and patient levels; infrastructure developments, including the provision of training, tools and campaigns; and practice improvements, such as demonstrations, measurement and coordination. All these initiatives were necessary, but the last, central coordination, would appear to be key to success.
Topics: Decision Making; Decision Making, Shared; Germany; Humans; Patient Participation; United Kingdom
PubMed: 35610131
DOI: 10.1016/j.zefq.2022.04.024 -
BMJ Military Health Jun 2023
Topics: Humans; Decision Making, Shared; Decision Making; Primary Health Care
PubMed: 35292506
DOI: 10.1136/bmjmilitary-2022-002096 -
Trends in Neurosciences Oct 2020Animals and humans evolved sophisticated nervous systems that endowed them with the ability to form internal-models or beliefs and make predictions about the future to... (Review)
Review
Animals and humans evolved sophisticated nervous systems that endowed them with the ability to form internal-models or beliefs and make predictions about the future to survive and flourish in a world in which future outcomes are often uncertain. Crucial to this capacity is the ability to adjust behavioral and learning policies in response to the level of uncertainty. Until recently, the neuronal mechanisms that could underlie such uncertainty-guided control have been largely unknown. In this review, I discuss newly discovered neuronal circuits in primates that represent uncertainty about future rewards and propose how they guide information-seeking, attention, decision-making, and learning to help us survive in an uncertain world. Lastly, I discuss the possible relevance of these findings to learning in artificial systems.
Topics: Animals; Attention; Choice Behavior; Decision Making; Learning; Reward; Uncertainty
PubMed: 32736849
DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2020.06.009 -
Patient Education and Counseling Jul 2022Purposeful SDM posits four modes of shared decision making (SDM). The use of each mode depends on the type of problem of care that is being addressed. We sought to...
OBJECTIVES
Purposeful SDM posits four modes of shared decision making (SDM). The use of each mode depends on the type of problem of care that is being addressed. We sought to identify how current observer-based SDM measures apply to each mode of Purposeful SDM.
METHODS
Four coders, working independently, evaluated 192 items pertaining to 12 observer-based SDM process measures. They classified the items into 6 themes that vary across Purposeful SDM modes and then into one of the four modes (weighing, negotiating, problem-solving, developing insight). Disagreements were resolved by consensus.
RESULTS
The items were classified as pertaining to the following themes: problem (28), roles/participation (84), options (62), preferences (21), decision (15), and evaluation (6). They were then classified as pertaining particularly to the SDM modes of weighing (54), negotiating (5), problem-solving (0), and developing insight (0) modes, with 191 items applying broadly to all modes of Purposeful SDM.
CONCLUSIONS
Observer-based SDM measures describe behaviors pertinent to all modes but lack items sensitive to behaviors particular to some modes of SDM.
PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS
New or revised observer-based measures of the SDM process could help estimate the extent to which the appropriate SDM mode is being used to address the patient's problem.
Topics: Decision Making; Decision Making, Shared; Humans; Negotiating; Patient Participation; Problem Solving; Process Assessment, Health Care
PubMed: 34802881
DOI: 10.1016/j.pec.2021.11.001 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Jun 2021A successful class of models link decision-making to brain signals by assuming that evidence accumulates to a decision threshold. These evidence accumulation models have...
A successful class of models link decision-making to brain signals by assuming that evidence accumulates to a decision threshold. These evidence accumulation models have identified neuronal activity that appears to reflect sensory evidence and decision variables that drive behavior. More recently, an additional evidence-independent and time-variant signal, called urgency, has been hypothesized to accelerate decisions in the face of insufficient evidence. However, most decision-making paradigms tested with fMRI or EEG in humans have not been designed to disentangle evidence accumulation from urgency. Here we use a face-morphing decision-making task in combination with EEG and a hierarchical Bayesian model to identify neural signals related to sensory and decision variables, and to test the urgency-gating model. Forty females and 34 males took part (mean age, 23.4 years). We find that an evoked potential time locked to the decision, the centroparietal positivity, reflects the decision variable from the computational model. We further show that the unfolding of this signal throughout the decision process best reflects the product of sensory evidence and an evidence-independent urgency signal. Urgency varied across subjects, suggesting that it may represent an individual trait. Our results show that it is possible to use EEG to distinguish neural signals related to sensory evidence accumulation, decision variables, and urgency. These mechanisms expose principles of cognitive function in general and may have applications to the study of pathologic decision-making such as in impulse control and addictive disorders. Perceptual decisions are often described by a class of models that assumes that sensory evidence accumulates gradually over time until a decision threshold is reached. In the present study, we demonstrate that an additional urgency signal impacts how decisions are formed. This endogenous signal encourages one to respond as time elapses. We found that neural decision signals measured by EEG reflect the product of sensory evidence and an evidence-independent urgency signal. A nuanced understanding of human decisions, and the neural mechanisms that support it, can improve decision-making in many situations and potentially ameliorate dysfunction when it has gone awry.
Topics: Adult; Bayes Theorem; Brain; Decision Making; Electroencephalography; Female; Humans; Male
PubMed: 34035140
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2551-20.2021 -
Zeitschrift Fur Evidenz, Fortbildung... Jun 2022
Topics: Decision Making; Decision Making, Shared; Germany; Humans; Patient Participation
PubMed: 35718408
DOI: 10.1016/j.zefq.2022.05.010