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Evaluations and value-based decisions are often accompanied by a feeling of confidence about whether or not the evaluation or decision is accurate. We argue that this feeling of confidence reflects the variation of an underlying value distribution and that this value distribution represents previously experienced values related to an object. Two preregistered experiments in which the variation of such value distributions was systematically varied provide causal evidence in favor of this hypothesis. A third preregistered experiment showed that, for natural food items with uncontrolled prior experiences, confidence in evaluations is again related to the variation of individuals' self-reported value distributions. Similarly, for choices between items, the variation of experienced values related to a choice pair influenced confidence in the perceived correctness of the choice. These findings converge with other domains of decision making showing that confidence tracks the variation of the underlying probability distribution of the evidence that a decision is based on, which in the case of value-based decisions, is informed by a value distribution reflecting priorly experienced values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual Probe Tasks (VPTs) have been extensively used to measure spatial attentional biases, but as usually analysed, VPTs do not consider trial-to-trial carryover effects of probe location: Does responding to a probe on, e.g., the location of a threat cue affect the bias on the subsequent trial? The aim of the current study was to confirm whether this kind of carryover exists, using a novel task version, the diagonalized VPT, designed to focus on such trial-to-trial interactions. Two versions of the task were performed by a sample of college students. In one version cues were coloured squares; in the other, cues were threat-related and neutral images. Both versions included partially random positive or negative response feedback and varying Cue-Probe Intervals (200 or 600 ms). Carryover effects were found in both versions. Responding to a probe at the location of a cue of a given colour induced an attentional bias on the subsequent trial in the direction of that colour. Responding to a threat-related cue induced an attentional bias towards threat on the subsequent trial. The results provide evidence that trial-to-trial carryover effects on spatial attentional bias indeed exist. A methodological implication is that previous probe location could be considered in analyses or re-analyses of spatial visual attention tasks. • Visual Probe Tasks aim to measure spatial attentional biases. • Some studies have shown high trial-to-trial noise. • Trial-to-trial noise may however provide information on attentional processes. • Trial-to-trial carryover effects of probe location on bias were tested. • Carryover effects explain significant trial-to-trial variance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA)-axis plays an important role in the expression of defensive freezing. Adaptive freezing reactivity, characterized by an immediate increase in acute stress and timely termination upon threat offset or need to act, is essential for adequate stress coping. Blunted HPA-axis activity in animals is associated with blunted freezing reactivity and internalizing symptoms. Despite their potential relevance, it remains unknown whether these mechanisms apply to humans and human psychopathology. Using a well-established method combining electrocardiography and posturography, we assessed freezing before, immediately after, and one hour after a stress induction in 92 human adolescents. In line with animal models, human adolescents showed stress-induced freezing, as quantified by relative reductions in heart rate and body sway after, as compared to before, stress. Moreover, relatively lower basal cortisol was associated with reduced stress-induced freezing reactivity (i.e., less immediate freezing and less recovery). Path analyses showed that decreased freezing recovery in individuals with reduced cortisol levels was associated with increased levels of internalizing symptoms. These findings suggest that reduced freezing recovery may be a promising marker for the etiology of internalizing symptoms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals may differ systematically in their applied decision strategies, which has critical implications for decision neuroscience but is yet scarcely studied. Our study's main focus was therefore to investigate the neural mechanisms underlying compensatory versus noncompensatory strategies in risky choice. Here, we compared people using a compensatory expected value maximization with people using a simplified noncompensatory loss-minimizing choice strategy. To this end, we used a two-choice paradigm including a set of "simple" items (e.g., simple condition), in which one option was superior on all attributes, and a set of "conflict" items, in which one option was superior on one attribute but inferior on other attributes. A binomial mixture analysis of the decisions elicited by these items differentiated between decision-makers using either a compensatory or a noncompensatory strategy. Behavioral differences were particularly pronounced in the conflict condition, and these were paralleled by neural results. That is, we expected compensatory decision-makers to use an integrated value comparison during choice in the conflict condition. Accordingly, the compensatory group tracked the difference in expected value between choice options reflected in neural activation in the parietal cortex. Furthermore, we expected noncompensatory, compared with compensatory, decision-makers to experience increased conflict when attributes provided conflicting information. Accordingly, the noncompensatory group showed greater dorsomedial PFC activation only in the conflict condition. These pronounced behavioral and neural differences indicate the need for decision neuroscience to account for individual differences in risky choice strategies and to broaden its scope to noncompensatory risky choice strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Choosing between smaller prompt rewards and larger later rewards is a common choice problem, and studies widely agree that frontostriatal circuits heavily innervated by dopamine are centrally involved. Understanding how dopamine modulates intertemporal choice has important implications for neurobiological models and for understanding the mechanisms underlying maladaptive decision-making. However, the specific role of dopamine in intertemporal decisions is not well understood. Dopamine may play a role in multiple aspects of intertemporal choices-the valuation of choice outcomes and sensitivity to reward delays. To assess the role of dopamine in intertemporal decisions, we tested Parkinson disease patients who suffer from dopamine depletion in the striatum, in either high (on medication, PDON) or low (off medication, PDOFF) dopaminergic states. Compared with both PDOFF and healthy controls, PDON made more farsighted choices and reduced their valuations less as a function of increasing time to reward. Furthermore, reduced discounting in the high dopaminergic state was robust across multiple measures, providing new evidence for dopamine's role in making decisions about the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) override the drive to eat, forgoing immediate rewards in favor of longer-term goals. We examined delay discounting and its neural correlates in AN before and after treatment to test a potential mechanism of illness persistence. Methods Inpatients with AN ( n = 59) and healthy control subjects (HC, n = 39) performed a delay discounting task at two time points. A subset ( n = 30 AN, n = 22 HC) participated in functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning during the task. The task consisted of a range of monetary choices with variable delay times, yielding individual discount rates—the rate by which money loses value over time. Results Before treatment, the AN group showed a preference for delayed over earlier rewards (i.e., less steep discount rates) compared with HC; after weight restoration, AN did not differ from HC. Underweight AN showed slower response times for earlier versus delayed choices; this reversed with treatment. Underweight AN showed abnormal neural activity in striatum and dorsal anterior cingulate; normalization of behavior was associated with increased activation in reward regions (striatum and dorsal anterior cingulate) and decision-making regions (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex). Conclusions The undernourished state of AN may amplify the tendency to forgo immediate rewards in favor of longer-term goals. The results suggest that behavior that looks phenotypically like excessive self-control does not correspond with enhanced prefrontal recruitment. Rather, the results point to alterations in cingulostriatal circuitry that offer new insights on the potential role of abnormalities in decision-making neural systems in the perpetuation of AN. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-world health and crime statistics indicate that adolescents are prone to engage in risks in the presence of peers. Although this effect has been documented in several lab studies, existing evidence varies and the psychological mechanisms that give rise to peer observation-induced shifts in adolescent risky decision-making remain poorly understood. We conducted a systematic literature review and meta-analysis to quantify the magnitude of the effect of direct peer observation on risky decision-making in adolescents. Across 186 effect sizes, representing data from 53 distinct research reports and over 5,000 participants, we found evidence that during adolescence, observation by peers increases decisions to take risks relative to decisions made while unobserved, with a small mean effect size (Hedges' g = 0.16). We also found high effect size heterogeneity (I2 = 82.63% and τ2 = 0.078), motivating analysis of moderation. We evaluated whether variables hypothesized by theory and prior research to amplify or reduce risk taking in the presence of peers systematically moderated the size of this effect, including factors related to the decision context, the peer context, and the experimental design. The overall effect was moderated by peers' expression of risk-seeking preferences, such that the effect of peer observation was only significant when peers were also expressing pro-risk attitudes. Evidence for publication bias was not consistently observed. Taken together, this work supports the notion that mere peer observation increases adolescent risky decision-making, but this effect is extremely small unless the peers are additionally expressing pro-risk preferences. Moreover, this work provokes questions regarding whether the field's approach to studying peer influence is optimal at conceptual and practical levels, and whether it is maximally translatable to real-world contexts. We offer suggestions for future work that could lead to a clearer understanding of peer observation effects during adolescence. Public Significance Statement: Adolescents are conceptualized as risk-takers in the presence of peers, as evident in real-world health statistics, laws, and policies such as graduated licensing procedures that restrict the number of nonfamily passengers for adolescent drivers. The present meta-analytic review found that peer observation increased adolescents' tendency to make risky decisions, but the effect is small in magnitude and was much greater when peers were expressing pro-risk preferences. We discuss the practical relevance of an effect of this size, provide recommendations to the field for conducting research toward a robust, translatable understanding of the nature of how peers influence preference for risk during adolescence, and discuss implications for policies involving youth decision-making in social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) are often characterized as possessing excessive self-control and are unusual in their ability to reduce or avoid the consumption of palatable foods. This behavior promotes potentially life-threatening weight loss and suggests disturbances in reward processing. We studied whether individuals with AN showed evidence of increased self-control by examining the tendency to delay receipt of a monetary, non-food related, reward. Underweight AN (n = 36) and healthy controls (HC, n = 28) completed a monetary intertemporal choice task measuring delay discounting factor. Individuals with AN reduced the value of a monetary reward over time significantly less than HC (F[1,61] = 5.03; p = 0.029). Secondary analyses indicated that the restricting subtype of AN, in particular, showed significantly less discounting than HC (F[1,46] = 8.3; p = 0.006). These findings indicate that some individuals with AN show less temporal discounting than HC, suggestive of enhanced self-control that is not limited to food consumption. This is in contrast to other psychiatric disorders, for example, substance abuse, which are characterized by greater discounting. Though preliminary, these findings suggest that excessive self-control may contribute to pathological processes and individuals with AN may have neuropsychological characteristics that enhance their ability to delay reward and thereby may help to maintain persistent food restriction. (JINS, 2012, 18, 1–8) [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Morally challenging decisions tend to be perceived as difficult by decision makers and often lead to post-decisional worry or regret. To test potential causes of these consequences, we employed realistic, morally challenging scenarios with two conflicting choice options. In addition to respondents' choices, we collected various ratings of choice options, decision-modes employed, as well as physiological arousal, assessed via skin conductance. Not surprisingly, option ratings predicted choice, such that the more positively rated option was chosen. However, respondents' self-reported decision modes also independently predicted choice. We further found that simultaneously engaging in decision modes that predict opposing choices increased decision difficulty and post-decision worry. In some cases this was related to increased arousal. Results suggest that at least a portion of the negative consequences associated with morally challenging decisions can be attributed to conflict in the decision modes one engages in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life is full of risky decisions, from the mundane to matters of life or death. Individuals differ in the risks they accept (or even deliberately embrace). However, risk taking is not a single trait but is a behavior influenced by characteristics of the situation (what the decision is about and to what extent it engages affect vs. deliberation), the decision maker (age and gender), and interactions between situation and decision maker. Understanding the mechanisms behind risk taking--or who takes risks when and why--is particularly important when the goal is to influence and modify the behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors investigated risk taking and underlying information use in 13- to 16- and 17- to 19-year-old adolescents and in adults in 4 experiments, using a novel dynamic risk-taking task, the Columbia Card Task (CCT). The authors investigated risk taking under differential involvement of affective versus deliberative processes with 2 versions of the CCT, constituting the most direct test of a dual-system explanation of adolescent risk taking in the literature so far. The "hot" CCT was designed to trigger more affective decision making, whereas the "cold" CCT was designed to trigger more deliberative decision making. Differential involvement of affective versus deliberative processes in the 2 CCT versions was established by self-reports and assessment of electrodermal activity. Increased adolescent risk taking, coupled with simplified information use, was found in the hot but not the cold condition. Need-for- arousal predicted risk taking only in the hot condition, whereas executive functions predicted information use in the cold condition. Results are consistent with recent dual-system explanations of risk taking as the result of competition between affective processes and deliberative cognitive-control processes, with adolescents' affective system tending to override the deliberative system in states of heightened emotional arousal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avoidance, a hallmark of anxiety-related psychopathology, often comes at a cost; avoiding threat may forgo the possibility of a reward. Theories predict that optimal approach-avoidance arbitration depends on threat-induced psychophysiological states, like freezing-related bradycardia. Here we used model-based fMRI analyses to investigate whether and how bradycardia states are linked to the neurocomputational underpinnings of approach-avoidance arbitration under varying reward and threat magnitudes. We show that bradycardia states are associated with increased threat-induced avoidance and more pronounced reward-threat value comparison (i.e., a stronger tendency to approach vs. avoid when expected reward outweighs threat). An amygdala-striatal-prefrontal circuit supports approach-avoidance arbitration under threat, with specific involvement of the amygdala and dorsal anterior cingulate (dACC) in integrating reward-threat value and bradycardia states. These findings highlight the role of human freezing states in value-based decision making, relevant for optimal threat coping. They point to a specific role for amygdala/dACC in state-value integration under threat. A human fMRI study shows that defensive cardiac states moderate the neural computations of reward and threat value underlying approach-avoidance arbitration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Successful responding to acutely threatening situations requires adequate approach–avoidance decisions. However, it is unclear how threat-induced states—like freezing-related bradycardia—impact the weighing of the potential outcomes of such value-based decisions. Insight into the underlying computations is essential, not only to improve our models of decision-making but also to improve interventions for maladaptive decisions, for instance in anxiety patients and first-responders who frequently have to make decisions under acute threat. Forty-two participants made passive and active approach–avoidance decisions under threat-of-shock when confronted with mixed outcome-prospects (i.e., varying money and shock amounts). Choice behavior was best predicted by a model including individual action-tendencies and bradycardia, beyond the subjective value of the outcome. Moreover, threat-related bradycardia (high-vs-low threat) interacted with subjective value, depending on the action-context (passive-vs-active). Specifically, in action-contexts incongruent with participants' intrinsic action-tendencies, stronger bradycardia related to diminished effects of subjective value on choice across participants. These findings illustrate the relevance of testing approach–avoidance decisions in relatively ecologically valid conditions of acute and primarily reinforced threat. These mechanistic insights into approach–avoidance conflict-resolution may inspire biofeedback-related techniques to optimize decision-making under threat. Critically, the findings demonstrate the relevance of incorporating internal psychophysiological states and external action-contexts into models of approach–avoidance decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study focused on the degree to which decision context (deliberative vs. affective) differentially impacted the use of available information about uncertainty (i.e., probability, positive and negative outcome magnitudes, expected value, and variance/risk) when older adults were faced with decisions under risk. In addition, we examined whether individual differences in general mental ability and executive function moderated the associations between age and information use. Participants (N = 96) completed a neuropsychological assessment and the hot (affective) and cold (deliberative) versions of an explicit risk task. Our results did not find a significant Age × Hot/Cold Condition interaction on overall risk-taking. However, we found that older adults were less likely to use the full decision information available regardless of the decision context. This finding suggested more global age differences in information use. Moreover, older adults were less likely to make expected-value sensitive decisions, regardless of the hot/cold context. Finally, we found that low performance on measures of executive functioning, but not general mental ability, appears to be a risk factor for lower information use. This pattern appears in middle age and progressively becomes stronger in older age. The current work provides evidence that common underlying decision processes may operate in risk tasks deemed either affective or deliberative. It further suggests that underlying mechanisms such as information use may be paramount, relative to differences in the affective context. Additionally, individual differences in neuropsychological function may act as a moderator in the tendency to use available information across affective context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disruption of function of left, but not right, lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) with low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) increased choices of immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards. rTMS did not change choices involving only delayed rewards or valuation judgments of immediate and delayed rewards, providing causal evidence for a neural lateral-prefrontal cortex–based self-control mechanism in intertemporal choice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents cases of patients treated with the anticholinergic drug Biperiden for excessive sweating suffered from methadone maintenance treatment. Observation that no patients required additional medication and no one reported adverse effects such as sedation, dizziness or dryness of the mouth.

Adolescents are generally characterized as impulsive. However, impulsivity is a multi-dimensional construct that involves multiple component processes. Which of these components contribute to adolescent impulsivity is currently unclear. This study focused on the neural mechanisms underlying individual differences in distinct components of temporal discounting (TD), i.e., the preference for smaller immediate rewards over larger delayed rewards. Participants were 58 adolescents (12–16 years-old) who performed an fMRI TD task with both monetary and snack rewards. Using mixed-effects modeling, we determined participants’ average impatience, and further decomposed TD choices into: 1) amount sensitivity (unique contribution of the magnitude of the immediate reward); and 2) delay sensitivity (unique contribution of delay duration). Adolescents’ average impatience was positively correlated with frontoparietal and ventral striatal activity during delayed reward choices, and with ventromedial prefrontal cortex activity during immediate reward choices. Adolescents’ amount sensitivity was positively associated with ventral striatal and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex activity during immediate reward choices. Delay sensitivity was positively correlated with inferior parietal cortex activity during delayed reward choices. As expected, snacks were discounted more steeply than money, and TD of both reward types was associated with overlapping activation in the inferior parietal cortex. Exploring whether testosterone or estradiol were associated with TD and its neural correlates revealed no significant associations. These findings indicate that distinct components contribute uniquely to TD choice and that individual differences in amount sensitivity are uniquely associated with activation of reward valuation areas, while individual differences in delay sensitivity are uniquely associated with activation of cognitive control areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When mind-wandering, people may think about events that happened in the past, or events that may happen in the future. Using experience sampling, we first aimed to replicate the finding that future-oriented thoughts show a greater positivity bias than past-oriented thoughts. Furthermore, we investigated whether there is a relation between the temporal distance of past- and future-oriented thoughts and the frequency of positive thoughts, a factor that has received little attention in previous work. Second, we experimentally investigated the relation between temporal focus, temporal distance, and thought valence. Both studies showed that future-oriented thoughts were more positive compared to past-oriented thoughts. Regarding temporal distance, thoughts about the distant past and future were more positive than thoughts about the near past and future in the experiment. However, the experience sampling study did not provide clear insight into this relation. Potential theoretical and methodological explanations for these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite evident heightened adolescent risk-taking in real-life situations, not all experimental studies demonstrate that adolescents take more risks than children and adults on risky decision-making tasks. In the current 4 independent meta-analyses, neurodevelopmental imbalance models and fuzzy trace theory were used as conceptual frameworks to examine whether adolescents engage in more risk-taking than children and adults and whether early adolescents take more risks than children and mid-late adolescents on behavioral risk-taking tasks. Studies with at least 1 of the aforementioned age comparisons met the inclusion criteria. Consistent with imbalance models and fuzzy trace theory, results from a random effects model showed that adolescents take more risks (g = .37) than adults, and early adolescents take more risks (g = .15) than mid-late adolescents. However, inconsistent with both perspectives, adolescents and children take equal levels of risk (g = -.00), and early adolescents and children also take equal levels of risk (g = .04). Meta-regression analyses revealed that, consistent with imbalance models, (a) adolescents take more risks than adults on hot tasks with immediate outcome feedback on rewards and losses; however, contrary to imbalance models but consistent with fuzzy trace theory, (b) adolescents take fewer risks than children on tasks with a sure/safe option. Shortcomings related to studies using behavioral risk-taking tasks are discussed. We suggest a hybrid developmental neuroecological model of risk-taking that includes a risk opportunity component to explain why adolescents take more risks than children in the real world but equal levels of risks as children in the laboratory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Only very recently has research demonstrated that experimentally inducedemotion regulationstrategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) affect risky choice (e.g., Heilman et al., 2010). However, it is unknown whether this effect also operates viahabitualuse of emotion regulation strategies in risky choice involving deliberative decision making. We investigated the role of habitual use of emotion regulation strategies in risky choice using the “cold” deliberative version of the Columbia Card Task (CCT; Figner et al., 2009). Fifty-three participants completed the Emotion Regulation Questionnaire (ERQ; Gross & John, 2003) and—one month later—the CCT and the PANAS. Greater habitual cognitive reappraisal use was related to increased risk taking, accompanied by decreased sensitivity to changes in probability and loss amount. Greater habitual expressive suppression use was related to decreased risk taking. The results show that habitual use of reappraisal and suppression strategies predict risk taking when decisions involve predominantly cognitive-deliberative processes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Previous studies suggest that cues predicting the outcome of attentional shifts provide a measure of anticipatory alcohol-related attentional bias that is correlated with risky drinking and has high reliability. However, this is complicated by potential contributions of visual features of cues to reliability, unrelated to their predictive value. Further, little is known of the sensitivity of the bias to variations in cue-outcome mapping manipulations, limiting our theoretical and methodological knowledge: Does the bias robustly follow varying cue-outcome mappings, or are there automatic cue-related associative processes involved? The current studies aimed to address these issues. Participants performed variations of the cued Visual Probe Task (cVPT) in which cues were non-predictive; in which there were multiple cue pairs, used simultaneously and serially; and in which the cue-outcome mapping was reversed. The major findings were, first, that previously found reliability cannot be attributed to aspects of the cues not related to outcome-prediction; second, that reliability of the bias does not survive deviations from a simple, consistent cue-outcome mapping; third, that all predictive versions of the task showed a bias towards alcohol; fourth, that the bias did not simply follow awareness of the cue-outcome mapping; and finally, that only in the case of simultaneous multiple cue pairs, an association with risky drinking was replicated. The results provide support for the reliability of the anticipatory attentional bias for alcohol, suggest that relatively persistent associative processes underlie the bias in the alcohol context, and provide a foundation for future work using the cVPT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluated the aspects of complex decisions influenced by peers, and components of peer involvement influential to adolescents' risky decisions. Participants (N = 140) aged 13-25 completed the Columbia Card Task (CCT), a risky choice task, isolating deliberation-reliant and affect-reliant decisions while alone, while a friend monitors choices, and while a friend is merely present. There is no condition in which a nonfriend peer is present. Results demonstrated the risk-increasing peer effect occurred in the youngest participants in the cold CCT and middle-late adolescents in the hot CCT, whereas other ages and contexts showed a risk-decreasing peer effect. Mere presence was not sufficient to influence risky behavior. These boundaries in age, decision, and peer involvement constrain prevailing models of adolescent peer influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Children and adolescents made overall less patient intertemporal choices than young adults. • Each age group (incl. children) took into account delay and amount information. • Sensitivity to amount differences showed a further monotonic increase with age group. • Sensitivity to delays did not differ across children, adolescents, and young adults. • More patient choices with age thus seem driven by changes in amount sensitivity. When choosing between sooner–smaller and later–larger rewards (i.e., intertemporal choices), adults typically prefer later–larger rewards more often than children. Intertemporal choice preferences have been implicated in various impulsivity-related psychopathologies, making it important to understand the underlying mechanisms not only in terms of how reward magnitude and delay affect choice but also in terms of how these mechanisms develop across age. We administered an intertemporal choice paradigm to 60 children (8–11 years), 79 adolescents (14–16 years), and 60 young adults (18–23 years). The paradigm systematically varied amounts and delays of the available rewards, allowing us to identify mechanisms underlying age-related differences in patience. Compared with young adults, both children and adolescents made fewer later–larger choices. In terms of underlying mechanisms, variation in delays, absolute reward magnitudes, and relative amount differences affected choice in each age group, indicating that children showed sensitivity to the same choice-relevant factors as young adults. Sensitivity to both absolute reward magnitude and relative amount differences showed a further monotonic age-related increase, whereas no change in delay sensitivity occurred. Lastly, adolescents and young adults weakly displayed a present bias (i.e., overvaluing immediate vs. future rewards; nonsignificant and trend, respectively), whereas children showed a nonsignificant but opposite pattern, possibly indicating that specifically dealing with future rewards changed with age. These findings shed light on the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the development of patience. By decomposing overt choices, our results suggest that the age-related increase in patience may be driven specifically by stronger sensitivity to amount differences with age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract We are often presented with choices that differ in their more immediate versus future consequences. Interestingly, in everyday-life, ambiguity about the exact timing of such consequences frequently occurs, yet it remains unknown whether and how time-ambiguity influences decisions and their underlying neural correlates. We developed a novel intertemporal fMRI choice task in which participants make choices between sooner-smaller (SS) versus later-larger (LL) monetary rewards with systematically varying levels of time-ambiguity. Across trials, delay information of the SS, the LL, or both rewards was either exact (e.g., in 5 weeks), of low ambiguity (4 week range: e.g., in 3–7 weeks), or of high ambiguity (8 week range: e.g., in 1–9 weeks). Choice behavior showed that the majority of participants preferred options with exact delays over those with ambiguous delays, indicating time-ambiguity aversion. Consistent with these results, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex showed decreased activation during ambiguous versus exact trials. In contrast, intraparietal sulcus activation increased during ambiguous versus exact trials. Furthermore, exploratory analyses suggest that more time-ambiguity averse participants show more insula and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activation during subjective value (SV)-coding of ambiguous versus exact trials. Lastly, the best-fitting computational choice models indicate that ambiguity impacts the SV of options via time perception or via an additive ambiguity-related penalty term. Together, these results provide the first behavioral and neural signatures of time-ambiguity, pointing towards a unique profile that is distinct from impatience. Since time-ambiguity is ubiquitous in real-life, it likely contributes to shortsighted decisions above and beyond delay-discounting. Highlights • We investigate time-ambiguity: uncertainty about when an outcome will occur. • Time-ambiguity is aversive, impacting choice behavior and reducing subjective value. • Time-ambiguity shows a neurobehavioral signature distinct from that of impatience. • Time-ambiguity is associated with increased IPS and decreased vmPFC activation. • Individual time-ambiguity preferences appear to modulate dlPFC and insula activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolescence is often described as a period of increased risk taking relative to both childhood and adulthood. This inflection in risky choice behavior has been attributed to a neurobiological imbalance between earlier developing motivational systems and later developing top-down control regions. Yet few studies have decomposed risky choice to investigate the underlying mechanisms or tracked their differential developmental trajectory. The current study uses a risk-return decomposition to more precisely assess the development of processes underlying risky choice and to link them more directly to specific neural mechanisms. This decomposition specifies the influence of changing risks (outcome variability) and changing returns (expected value) on the choices of children, adolescents, and adults in a dynamic risky choice task, the Columbia Card Task. Behaviorally, risk aversion increased across age groups, with adults uniformly risk averse and adolescents showing substantial individual differences in risk sensitivity, ranging from risk seeking to risk averse. Neurally, we observed an adolescent peak in risk-related activation in the anterior insula and dorsal medial PFC. Return sensitivity, on the other hand, increased monotonically across age groups and was associated with increased activation in the ventral medial PFC and posterior cingulate cortex with age. Our results implicate adolescence as a developmental phase of increased neural risk sensitivity. Importantly, this work shows that using a behaviorally validated decision-making framework allows a precise operationalization of key constructs underlying risky choice that inform the interpretation of results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correction: Protocol of the Healthy Brain Study: An accessible resource for understanding the human brain and how it dynamically and individually operates in its bio-social context The originally published, uncorrected article and the republished, corrected articles are provided here for reference. This article was republished on April 1, 2022, to update the author byline and list all members of the group consortium. [Extracted from the article]

The anticipation of threat facilitates innate defensive behaviours including freezing reactions. Freezing in humans is characterised by reductions in body sway and heart rate. Limited evidence suggests that individual differences in freezing reactions are associated with predictors of anxiety-related psychopathology including trait anxiety and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity. However, previous human studies focused on acutely circulating cortisol levels, leaving the link between freezing and more stable, individual trait markers of HPA axis activity unclear. We investigated whether individual differences in anticipatory freezing reactions are predicted by accumulated hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) and trait anxiety, in a well-powered mixed sample of police recruits at the start of the police training, and age, sex and education matched controls (total N = 419, mean age = 24, N women = 106, N police recruits = 337). Freezing-related reactions were assessed with posturographic and heart rate measurements during an active shooting task under threat of shock. The anticipation of threat of shock elicited the expected reductions in body sway and heart rate, indicative of human freezing. Individual differences in threat-related reductions in body sway, but not heart rate, were related to lower HCC and higher trait anxiety. The observed links between postural freezing and predictors of anxiety-related psychopathology suggest the potential value of defensive freezing as a somatic marker for individual differences in stress-vulnerability and resilience. The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request. • Individual differences in defensive freezing studied in relation to hair cortisol concentrations (HCC) and trait anxiety. • Freezing-related reactions were assessed with posturographic and heart rate measurements during an active shooting task. • Increased postural freezing in response to acute threat was related to lower HCC and higher trait anxiety. • Defensive freezing may constitute a promising somatic marker for stress- and anxiety vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social anxiety and psychopathy have conceptually been linked to nearly opposite emotional, behavioral and endocrinological endophenotypes, representing social fearfulness and fearlessness, respectively. Although such a dimensional view has theoretical and practical implications, no study has directly compared social anxiety and psychopathy in terms of emotional experiences, relevant hormones (i.e. cortisol, testosterone) and behavioral tendencies (i.e. social approach-avoidance). Therefore, the present study examined 1) whether self-reported social anxiety and psychopathic traits are indeed anticorrelated, and 2) whether social anxiety, psychopathic traits, cortisol, testosterone and their interplay are differentially linked to social approach-avoidance tendencies. In a well-powered study, a sample of 196 healthy female participants, we assessed self-reported emotional and behavioral tendencies of social fear (i.e. social anxiety and social avoidance) and psychopathic traits (i.e. Factor I [interpersonal-affective deficit] and Factor II [impulsive behavior]). Furthermore, hormone levels were assessed, and approach-avoidance tendencies towards emotional (angry, happy) facial expressions were measured by means of a joystick reaction time task. Results confirmed that self-reported emotional tendencies of social anxiety and psychopathy Factor I (interpersonal-affective deficit) correlated negatively, but self-reported behavioral tendencies (social avoidance and psychopathy Factor II [impulsive behavior]) correlated positively. Furthermore, Structural Equation Modelling demonstrated that participants with higher social anxiety and higher cortisol levels showed an avoidance tendency towards happy faces, while participants with higher psychopathic traits showed an approach tendency towards angry faces. In sum, the notion that social anxiety and psychopathic traits are opposing ends of one dimension was supported only in terms of self-reported emotional experiences, but a comparable relationship with regard to behavioral and endocrinological aspects is debatable. The current findings stress the necessity to study emotional, endocrinological and behavioral factors in unison in order to better understand the shared and distinctive mechanisms of social anxiety and psychopathic traits. • The endophenotypes of social anxiety and psychopathy are not simply anti-correlated. • Self-reported emotional facets (social fear and Factor I) were negatively correlated. • Self-reported behavior (social avoidance and Factor II) was positively correlated. • Higher cortisol was related to faster avoidance tendencies in socially anxious women. • Psychopathic traits were related to faster approach tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive avoidance behaviour is a cardinal symptom of anxiety disorders. Avoidance is not only associated with the benefits of avoiding threats, but also with the costs of missing out on rewards upon exploration. Psychological and psychophysiological mechanisms contributing to these costly avoidance decisions in prospect of mixed outcomes remain unclear. We developed a novel Fearful Avoidance Task (FAT) that resembles characteristics of real-life approach-avoidance conflicts, enabling to disentangle reward and threat effects. Using the FAT, we investigated individual differences in avoidance behaviour and anticipatory psychophysiological states (i.e. startle reflex and skin conductance) in a relatively large sample of 343 (78 females) participants. Avoidance under acute threat of shock depends on a trade-off between perceived reward and threat. Both increased startle and skin conductance in the absence of threat of shock emerged as predictors of increased avoidance (potentially indicative of fear generalization). Increased avoidance was also associated with female sex and trait anxiety, dependent on reward and threat levels. Our findings highlight distinct possible predictors of heightened avoidance and add to mechanistic understanding of how individual propensity for costly avoidance may emerge. Distinct avoidance typologies based on differential reward and threat sensitivities may have different mechanistic origins and thereby could benefit from different treatment strategies. • Avoidance behaviour depends on a trade-off between perceived reward and threat. • Avoidance is associated with increased startle and skin conductance during low threat. • Both reward and threat sensitivity can drive individual differences in avoidance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the long‐lasting detrimental effects of internalizing symptoms, there is great need for detecting early risk markers. One promising marker is freezing behavior. Whereas initial freezing reactions are essential for coping with threat, prolonged freezing has been associated with internalizing psychopathology. However, it remains unknown whether early life alterations in freezing reactions predict changes in internalizing symptoms during adolescent development. In a longitudinal study (N = 116), we tested prospectively whether observed freezing in infancy predicted the development of internalizing symptoms from childhood through late adolescence (until age 17). Both longer and absent infant freezing behavior during a standard challenge (robot‐confrontation task) were associated with internalizing symptoms in adolescence. Specifically, absent infant freezing predicted a relative increase in internalizing symptoms consistently across development from relatively low symptom levels in childhood to relatively high levels in late adolescence. Longer infant freezing also predicted a relative increase in internalizing symptoms, but only up until early adolescence. This latter effect was moderated by peer stress and was followed by a later decrease in internalizing symptoms. The findings suggest that early deviations in defensive freezing responses signal risk for internalizing symptoms and may constitute important markers in future stress vulnerability and resilience studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]