Comparing experience- and description-based economic preferences across 11 countries.

Recent evidence indicates that reward value encoding in humans is highly context dependent, leading to suboptimal decisions in some cases, but whether this computational constraint on valuation is a shared feature of human cognition remains unknown. Here we studied the behaviour of n = 561 individuals from 11 countries of markedly different socioeconomic and cultural makeup. Our findings show that context sensitivity was present in all 11 countries. Suboptimal decisions generated by context manipulation were not explained by risk aversion, as estimated through a separate description-based choice task (that is, lotteries) consisting of matched decision offers. Conversely, risk aversion significantly differed across countries. Overall, our findings suggest that context-dependent reward value encoding is a feature of human cognition that remains consistently present across different countries, as opposed to description-based decision-making, which is more permeable to cultural factors.

Outcome context-dependence is not WEIRD: Comparing reinforcement- and description-based economic preferences worldwide.

Recent evidence indicates that reward value encoding in humans is highly context-dependent, leading to suboptimal decisions in some cases. But whether this computational constraint on valuation is a shared feature of human cognition remains unknown. To address this question, we studied the behavior of individuals from across 11 countries of markedly different socioeconomic and cultural makeup using an experimental approach that reliably captures context effects in reinforcement learning. Our findings show that all samples presented evidence of similar sensitivity to context. Crucially, suboptimal decisions generated by context manipulation were not explained by risk aversion, as estimated through a separate description-based choice task (i.e., lotteries) consisting of matched decision offers. Conversely, risk aversion significantly differed across countries. Overall, our findings suggest that context-dependent reward value encoding is a hardcoded feature of human cognition, while description-based decision-making is significantly sensitive to cultural factors.

The description-experience gap: a challenge for the neuroeconomics of decision-making under uncertainty.

The experimental investigation of decision-making in humans relies on two distinct types of paradigms, involving either description- or experience-based choices. In description-based paradigms, decision variables (i.e. payoffs and probabilities) are explicitly communicated by means of symbols. In experience-based paradigms decision variables are learnt from trial-by-trial feedback. In the decision-making literature, 'description-experience gap' refers to the fact that different biases are observed in the two experimental paradigms. Remarkably, well-documented biases of description-based choices, such as under-weighting of rare events and loss aversion, do not apply to experience-based decisions. Here, we argue that the description-experience gap represents a major challenge, not only to current decision theories, but also to the neuroeconomics research framework, which relies heavily on the translation of neurophysiological findings between human and non-human primate research. In fact, most non-human primate neurophysiological research relies on behavioural designs that share features of both description- and experience-based choices. As a consequence, it is unclear whether the neural mechanisms built from non-human primate electrophysiology should be linked to description-based or experience-based decision-making processes. The picture is further complicated by additional methodological gaps between human and non-human primate neuroscience research. After analysing these methodological challenges, we conclude proposing new lines of research to address them. This article is part of the theme issue 'Existence and prevalence of economic behaviours among non-human primates'.

Dynamic and Functional Approach to Human Memory in the Brain: A Clinical Neuropsychological Perspective.

The way how cognition is conceived and represented in brain functioning will directly impact clinical investigations of people with cognitive difficulties. This is particularly evident in the field of clinical neuropsychology where methodologies and tools are justified on a fundamental level by the theoretical foundations adopted. The present article outlined how the dominant influences of structural and anatomo-clinical theories of memory have led to a particular conception of clinical investigations. We propose to reconsider these dominant methods in favor of a more dynamic and functional representation of memory that would be clinically more appropriate. More precisely, we argued that relying exclusively on a particular memory conception (i.e., structural) may not be sufficient considering the range of real-life variables affecting a patient's memory. By extracting clinically meaningful information in more functional and dynamic memory conceptions, we also aim at underlining the potentials advantages of such theories in facilitating personalized assessments and follow up of patients in clinical neuropsychology. We suggest that a dynamic, functional, and integrative conception of memory would be more coherent with the trend in clinical neuropsychology to promote a more collaborative interaction between the clinician and the patient. Finally, considering the absence of empirical studies on the possible benefits of implementing such recent memory concepts in clinical practice, we encourage researchers and clinicians to test in the field of clinical neuropsychology, the usefulness and explanatory power of more dynamic and functional representation of memory in order to objectively demonstrate its validity outside the research loop.