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Cited by 106Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesDecision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsVisual perception and processing mechanisms

Hierarchical decision processes that operate over distinct timescales underlie choice and changes in strategy

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Purcell, Braden A., Kiani, Roozbeh·2016·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
DOI 10.1073/pnas.1524685113PMC PMC4978308
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Abstract

Significance: Decisions are guided by available information and strategies that link information to action. Following a bad outcome, two potential sources of error—flawed strategy and poor information—must be distinguished to improve future performance. In a direction discrimination task where subjects decide by accumulating sensory evidence to a bound, we show that humans disambiguate sources of error by integrating expected accuracy and outcome over multiple choices. The strategy switches when the integral reaches a threshold. A hierarchy of decision processes in which lower levels integrate sensory evidence over short timescales, and higher levels interact with lower levels over longer timescales, quantitatively explains the behavior. Expected accuracy links these two levels and enables adaptive changes of decision strategy.

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  • Subjects track a prior on propositional confidence by integrating evidence over multiple trials and leverage this prior on expected task accuracy to decide whether to switch strategy.

    “In an elegant paradigm, Purcell & Kiani (2016) found that subjects track a prior on propositional confidence by integrating evidence over multiple trials, and they leverage this prior on expected task accuracy to decide whether to switch strategy (in effect, reaching a threshold at which they decide to blame the error on the task rather than on themselves).”

    From Metacognition and Confidence: A Review and Synthesis (2024) · cites this paper as Purcell & Kiani 2016

    The Discussion and Results (page numbers unavailable) report that subjects integrate negative feedback across trials, weight it by expected choice accuracy, and switch strategies when accumulated switch evidence reaches a bound. The paper does not describe the quantity tracked across trials as a prior on propositional confidence; confidence informs the evidence about whether the environment has changed. (LLM, conf=0.86)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

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Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Purcell, B. A., & Kiani, R.
Affiliations
New York University (US)
ORCID
Kiani, Roozbeh
Venue
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Publisher
National Academy of Sciences
Published
2016-07-18
Volume
113
Issue
31
Pages
E4531-40
ISSN
  • 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
  • 1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.1524685113
PMC
PMC4978308
OpenAlex
W2495578787
Cited by
106
References
16
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 7 · 2019: 11 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 1
FWCI
7.21
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.pnas.org/preview_site/misc/userlicense.xhtml (vor, 184 d)
Locations
  • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
  • HHS | NIH | National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH109180-01)
  • Simons Foundation (351208)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
Keywords
strategy updating, active inference, expected accuracy, random dot motion, evidence accumulation, drift-diffusion model, computational models of decision making
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Algorithms, Brain, Choice Behavior, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Male, Motion Perception, Nerve Net, Psychomotor Performance, Logistic Models, Feedback, Psychological, Uncertainty

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