Search

Risk and uncertainty are central concepts of decision neuroscience. However, a comprehensive review of the literature shows that most studies define risk and uncertainty in an unclear fashion or use both terms interchangeably, which hinders the integration of the existing findings. We suggest uncertainty as an umbrella term that comprises scenarios characterized by outcome variance where relevant information about the type and likelihood of outcomes may be somewhat unavailable (ambiguity) and scenarios where the likelihood of outcomes is known (risk). These conceptual issues are problematic for studies on the temporal neurodynamics of decision-making under risk and ambiguity, because they lead to heterogeneity in task design and the interpretation of the results. To assess this problem, we conducted a state-of-the-art review of ERP studies on risk and ambiguity in decision-making. By employing the above definitions to 16 reviewed studies, our results suggest that: (a) research has focused more on risk than ambiguity processing; (b) studies assessing decision-making under risk often implemented descriptive-based paradigms, whereas studies assessing ambiguity processing equally implemented descriptive- and experience-based tasks; (c) descriptive-based studies link risk processing to increased frontal negativities (e.g., N2, N400) and both risk and ambiguity to reduced parietal positivities (e.g., P2, P3); (d) experience-based studies link risk to increased P3 amplitudes and ambiguity to increased frontal negativities and the LPC component; (e) both risk and ambiguity processing seem to be related with cognitive control, conflict monitoring, and increased cognitive demand; (f) further research and improved tasks are needed to dissociate risk and ambiguity processing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescence is a period of development in which youth have new opportunities for decision-making, often in situations where they may have little information or experience to guide their choices. Thus, learning to make decisions under uncertainty is a key challenge during adolescence. To date, researchers have applied economics formalisms to understand the processes that support adolescents in making decisions under two distinct forms of uncertainty: economic risk and economic ambiguity. Economic risk is when the probabilities of outcomes are known. Economic ambiguity is when the probabilities of outcomes are unknown or unknowable. This research has led to foundational knowledge about the basic processes involved in adolescent decision-making, but many experimental paradigms that dissociate economic risk and ambiguity rely on monetary or point-based choices. Given that adolescence is a period of development characterized by a changing social environment, it remains unclear whether the processes that adolescents engage during decision-making on monetary or point-based experimental tasks generalize to their day-to-day experiences in the real world. In this brief piece, we explore how developmental research applying economics formalisms can be bolstered by research on youth's social environments to advance our understanding of decision-making in adolescence. First, we review developmental research by using economic uncertainty paradigms. Next, we highlight research on adolescents' social environments to provide examples of the day-to-day choices that adolescents face among their peers and in their broader communities. Finally, we propose directions for future research integrating these separate approaches to create a more nuanced, ecologically informed understanding of adolescent decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decision-makers often are faced with uncertain situations in which they have incomplete information. While risky decisions include the probabilities of the possible outcomes, ambiguous decisions involve both unknown probabilities and unknown outcomes. Prior research has suggested that there are differences in how men and women evaluate risk, but evidence related to gender and ambiguity is mixed. The present work approaches this problem from a novel angle, focusing on the use of information that is present rather than the impact of information that is absent. It examines how individuals assign value in uncertain decisions based on the partial information they do have. While a main effect of gender on value is not observed, there is an enhanced "optimism bias" in how both favorable and unfavorable information influences the subjective value of ambiguous financial prospects for male compared to female participants. Unpacking these effects suggests multiple mechanisms, including a significant contribution of risk processing. Specifically, favorable and unfavorable information are over- and underweighted respectively in male participants' estimated likelihood of a winning outcome, and unfavorable information is underweighted in estimating certainty. There also is an interaction of gender and risk preferences, such that value increases more for male participants as the subjectively estimated likelihood of winning increases. A second experiment demonstrates this risk interaction effect is also observed for objective probabilities of winning, suggesting that the relationship between value and risk uses similar mechanisms across layers of uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty permeates decisions from the trivial to the profound. Integrating brain and behavioral evidence, we discuss how probabilistic (varied outcomes) and temporal (delayed outcomes) uncertainty differ across age and individuals; how critical tests adjudicate between theories of uncertainty (prospect theory and fuzzy-trace theory); and how these mechanisms might be represented in the brain. The same categorical gist representations of gains and losses account for choices and eye-tracking data in both value-allocation (add money to gambles) and risky-choice tasks, disconfirming prospect theory and confirming predictions of fuzzy-trace theory. The analysis is extended to delay discounting and disambiguated choices, explaining hidden-zero effects that similarly turn on categorical distinctions between some gain and no gain, certain gain and uncertain gain, gain and loss, and now and later. Bold activation implicates dorsolateral prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices in gist strategies that are not just one tool in a grab-bag of cognitive options but rather are general strategies that systematically predict behaviors across many different tasks involving probabilistic and temporal uncertainty. High valuation (e.g., ventral striatum; ventromedial prefrontal cortex) and low executive control (e.g., lateral prefrontal cortex) contribute to risky and impatient choices, especially in youth. However, valuation in ventral striatum supports reward-maximizing and gist strategies in adulthood. Indeed, processing becomes less "rational" in the sense of maximizing gains and more noncompensatory (eye movements indicate fewer tradeoffs) as development progresses from adolescence to adulthood, as predicted. Implications for theoretically predicted "public-health paradoxes" are discussed, including gist versus verbatim thinking in drug experimentation and addiction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans globally are reaping the benefits of longer lives. Yet, longer life spans also require engaging with consequential but often uncertain decisions well into old age. Previous research has yielded mixed findings with regards to life span differences in how individuals make decisions under uncertainty. One factor contributing to the heterogeneity of findings is the diversity of paradigms that cover different aspects of uncertainty and tap into different cognitive and affective mechanisms. In this study, 175 participants (53.14% females, mean age = 44.9 years, SD = 19.0, age range = 16 to 81) completed functional neuroimaging versions of two prominent paradigms in this area, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and the Delay Discounting Task. Guided by neurobiological accounts of age-related changes in decision-making under uncertainty, we examined age effects on neural activation differences in decision-relevant brain structures, and compared these across multiple contrasts for the two paradigms using specification curve analysis. In line with theoretical predictions, we find age differences in nucleus accumbens, anterior insula, and medial prefrontal cortex, but the results vary across paradigm and contrasts. Our results are in line with existing theories of age differences in decision making and their neural substrates, yet also suggest the need for a broader research agenda that considers how both individual and task characteristics determine the way humans deal with uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]