The Attraction Effect Modulates Reward Prediction Errors and Intertemporal Choices.

ABSTRACT: Classical economic theory contends that the utility of a choice option should be independent of other options. This view is challenged by the attraction effect, in which the relative preference between two options is altered by the addition of a third, asymmetrically dominated option. Here, we leveraged the attraction effect in the context of intertemporal choices to test whether both decisions and reward prediction errors (RPE) in the absence of choice violate the independence of irrelevant alternatives principle. We first demonstrate that intertemporal decision making is prone to the attraction effect in humans. In an independent group of participants, we then investigated how this affects the neural and behavioral valuation of outcomes using a novel intertemporal lottery task and fMRI.

SUBMITTER: Gluth S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6596571 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature