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Cited by 28Decision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsMemory Processes and InfluencesNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Process and Content in Decisions From Memory

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Zhao, Wenjia Joyce, Richie, Russell, Bhatia, Sudeep·2022·Psychological Review
DOI 10.1037/rev0000318
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Abstract

Information stored in memory influences the formation of preferences and beliefs in most everyday decision tasks. The richness of this information, and the complexity inherent in interacting memory and decision processes, makes the quantitative model-driven analysis of such decisions very difficult. In this paper we present a general framework that can address the theoretical and methodological barriers to building formal models of naturalistic memory-based decision making. Our framework implements established theories of memory search and decision making within a single integrated cognitive system, and uses computational language models to quantify the thoughts over which memory and decision processes operate.It can thus describe both the content of the information that is sampled from memory, as well as the processes involved in retrieving and evaluating this information in order to make a decision. Furthermore, our framework is tractable, and the parameters that characterize memory-based decisions can be recovered using thought-listing and choice data from existing experimental tasks, and in turn be used to make quantitative predictions regarding choice probability, length of deliberation, retrieved thoughts, and the effects of decision context. We showcase the power and generality of our framework by applying it to naturalistic binary choices from domains such as risk perception, consumer behavior, financial decision making, ethical decision making, legal decision making, food choice, and social judgment.

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  • Retrieval plays a key role in human decision-making.

    “While retrieval plays a key role in human decision-making (Zhou et al., 2023a; Zhao et al., 2022), adaptive and context-specific recall remains understudied in language agents.”

    From Cognitive Architectures for Language Agents (2023) · cites this paper as Zhao et al., 2022

  • Recent computational psychological models implicate an integrated process of memory recall and decision-making.

    “Recent computational psychological models implicate an integrated process of memory recall and decision-making (Zhou et al., 2023a; Zhao et al., 2022)”

    From Cognitive Architectures for Language Agents (2023) · cites this paper as Zhao et al., 2022

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Authors
Zhao, W. J., Richie, R., & Bhatia, S.
Affiliations
  • The Ohio State University (US)
  • University of Pennsylvania (US)
Corresponding author
Zhao, Wenjia Joyce
ORCID
Venue
Psychological Review
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2022-01
Volume
129
Issue
1
Pages
73-106
ISSN
  • 0033-295X (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1471
DOI
10.1037/rev0000318
OpenAlex
W3135352592
Cited by
28
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 6 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2
FWCI
2.51
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Psychological Review (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Warwick Research Archive Portal (University of Warwick) (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
  • PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • National Science Foundation (SES-1847794)
  • Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
memory-based decision making, deliberation, choice probabilities, deliberation time, risk perception, consumer behavior, financial decision-making, ethical decision-making, legal decision-making, food choice, social judgment, binary choice
MeSH terms
Decision Making, Humans, Judgment, Probability

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