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In two minds: The neuroscience of decision-making

In two minds: The neuroscience of decision-making. Deborah Talmi, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester. Outline. Why neuroscience? Two systes for decision making Examples from moral and economic decisions How does the implicit system influence decision-making?

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In two minds: The neuroscience of decision-making

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  1. In two minds: The neuroscience of decision-making Deborah Talmi, School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester

  2. Outline • Why neuroscience? • Two systes for decision making • Examples from moral and economic decisions • How does the implicit system influence decision-making? • Empirical examples

  3. Proscriptive and descriptive models • Proscriptive models offer yardsticks for good decisions… • Serve the greater society • Rational (e.g. preferences are consistent with each other) • Maximise the hedonic experience (happiness) associated with an outcome • Descriptive models: How do people actually make decisions? • Empirical answers > >

  4. The dual processing framework Implicit Explicit

  5. Moral decisions • The trolley problem: Implicit and explicit preferences • The two systems are implemented in separate brain regions • Patients with damage to frontal brain regions compared to brain damaged and healthy controls • Patients made more ‘explicitly rational’ decisions

  6. Economic decisions • Endowment: $20 of play money • Invest (pay $1) or not (keep 1$)? Lose $1 Win $2.50 Patients won 25$ Controls won 20$

  7. Control of behaviour – animal decision • Pavlovian control • Attraction to stimuli previously associated with reward • Habitual control • Continue previously rewarded behaviour even when it is no longer rewarding • Goal-directed control • Explicit representation of the link between the action and the outcome Implicit Explicit

  8. The implicit system and emotions • Computations of the implicit system give rise to feelings and intuitions • Is the current situation better or worse than expected? Early Training Late Training

  9. The implicit system can help decisions • When the environment is complex, computation in the implicit system can improve decisions Easy Complex % choosing the objectively better car

  10. The implicit system can hinder decisions • Implicit computations are associative, making them vulnerable to contextual biases • This can get in the way of making optimal decisions % choice of an unhealthy snack

  11. Summary: Deciding well • Neuroscience research improves our understanding of the way people make decisions • The dual process view explains why we can be ‘in two minds’ about a choice • Implicit computations give rise to emotions • The properties of implicit computations explain why emotions seem to sometimes help and sometimes hinder us from making optimal decisions

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