Conditioned associations and economic decision biases.
Open accessAbstract
Humans show substantial deviation from rationality during economic decision making under uncertainty. A computational perspective suggests these deviations arise out of an interaction between distinct valuation systems in the brain. Here, we provide behavioural data showing that the incidental presentation of aversive and appetitive conditioned stimuli can alter subjects' preferences in an economic task, involving a choice between a safe or gamble option. These behavioural effects informed a model-based analysis of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiment, involving an identical paradigm, where we demonstrate that this conditioned behavioral bias engages the amygdala, a brain structure associated with acquisition and expression of conditioned associations. Our findings suggest that a well known bias in human economic choice can arise from an influence of conditioned associations on goal-directed decision making, consistent with an architecture of choice that invokes distinct decision-making systems.
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Loss aversion may represent a third instance of Pavlovian responses to losses interfering with goal-directed decisions in this task.
“To the extent to which loss aversion can be described as an inflexible, reactive, response to an aversive stimulus, it may represent a third instance of Pavlovian responses to losses interfering with goal-directed decisions in this task [27].”
From Bonsai trees in your head: how the pavlovian system sculpts goal-directed choices by pruning decision trees (2012) · cites this paper as [27]
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- Authors
- Guitart-Masip, M., Talmi, D., & Dolan, R.
- Affiliations
- Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging (GB)
- ORCID
- Talmi, Deborah
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2010-10
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 206-214
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC2923756
- OpenAlex
- W2133621744
- Cited by
- 36
- References
- 45
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 4 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 9
- FWCI
- 4.25
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Research Explorer (The University of Manchester) (submittedVersion)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Wellcome Trust Programme
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
- Keywords
- economic decision-making, risk preferences, amygdala, decision bias, goal-directed decision making, valuation system, computational models of decision making
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Association Learning, Brain, Choice Behavior, Conditioning, Classical, Decision Making, Economics, Female, Gambling, Humans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Prejudice
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