Reminders of past choices bias decisions for reward in humans.

ABSTRACT: We provide evidence that decisions are made by consulting memories for individual past experiences, and that this process can be biased in favour of past choices using incidental reminders. First, in a standard rewarded choice task, we show that a model that estimates value at decision-time using individual samples of past outcomes fits choices and decision-related neural activity better than a canonical incremental learning model. In a second experiment, we bias this sampling process by incidentally reminding participants of individual past decisions. The next decision after a reminder shows a strong influence of the action taken and value received on the reminded trial. These results provide new empirical support for a decision architecture that relies on samples of individual past choic

SUBMITTER: Bornstein AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5490260 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature