Beyond money: Risk preferences across both economic and non-economic contexts predict financial decisions.

Important decisions about risk occur in wide-ranging contexts, from investing to healthcare. While an underlying, domain-general risk attitude has been identified across contexts, it remains unclear what role it plays in shaping behavior relative to more domain-specific risk attitudes. Clarifying the relationship between domain-general and domain-specific risk attitudes would inform decision-making theories and the construction of decision aids. The present research assessed the relative contribution of domain-general and domain-specific risk attitudes to financial risk taking. We examined risk attitudes across different decision domains, as revealed through a well-validated measure, the Domain-Specific Risk-Taking Scale (DOSPERT). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a domain-general risk attitude shaped responses across multiple domains, and structural equation modeling showed that this domain-general risk attitude predicted observed behavioral risk premiums in a financial decision-making task better than domain-specific financial risk attitudes. Thus, assessments of risk attitudes that include both economic and non-economic domains improve predictions of financial risk taking due to the enhanced insight they provide into underlying, domain-general risk preferences.

Exploring common changes after acute mental stress and acute tryptophan depletion: Resting-state fMRI studies.

Stress and low serotonin levels are important biological factors in depression and anxiety etiologies. Although studies indicate that low serotonin levels, stress, and other factors may interact in depression/anxiety psychopathology, few studies have investigated the potentially shared neural substrates. We conducted resting-state fMRI scans pre- and post-stress task, and under control and tryptophan depletion condition, to explore the common changes induced by acute mental stress (AMS) and acute tryptophan depletion (ATD). The present study targeted regions within core brain networks - default mode network, salience network, executive control network, and emotion network - reported altered in AMS and ATD, and used regional homogeneity (ReHo) and functional connectivity (FC) analyses to explore their overlapped effects. We additionally examined the relationships among core neural networks - operationalized as an index of resource allocation bias that quantifies the shift from internal to external modes of processing. We found both manipulations induced increased ReHo of the amygdala and decreased ReHo of the posterior cingulate cortex (PCC). The PCC-amygdala FC was negatively correlated with the change of negative affect, whereas the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right anterior insula FC was positively associated with anxiety level. In addition, we found that a greater shift to an external mode was correlated with higher anxiety level under both conditions. Common changes induced by acute mental stress and acute tryptophan depletion confirmed our hypothesis that AMS and ATD induce changes in common neural pathways, which in turn might mark vulnerability to depression and anxiety.

Moral judgment modulation by disgust priming via altered fronto-temporal functional connectivity.

Moral judgments are not just the product of conscious reasoning, but also involve the integration of social and emotional information. Irrelevant disgust stimuli modulate moral judgments, with individual sensitivity determining the direction and size of effects across both hypothetical and incentive-compatible experimental designs. We investigated the neural circuitry underlying this modulation using fMRI in 19 individuals performing a moral judgment task with subliminal priming of disgust facial expressions. Our results indicate that individual changes in moral acceptability due to priming covaried with individual differences in activation within the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). Further, whole-brain analyses identified changes in functional connectivity between the dmPFC and the temporal-parietal junction (TPJ). High sensitivity individuals showed enhanced functional connectivity between the TPJ and dmPFC, corresponding with deactivation in the dmPFC, and rating the moral dilemmas as more acceptable. Low sensitivity individuals showed the opposite pattern of results. Post-hoc, these findings replicated in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (daMCC), an adjacent region implicated in converting between objective and subjective valuation. This suggests a specific computational mechanism - that disgust stimuli modulate moral judgments by altering the integration of social information to determine the subjective valuation of the considered moral actions.

Neural Mechanisms of the Transformation from Objective Value to Subjective Utility: Converting from Count to Worth.

When deciding, we aim to choose the "best" possible outcome. This is not just selection of the option that is the most numerous or physically largest, as options are translated from objective value (count) to subjective value (worth or utility). We localized the neural instantiation of the value-to-utility transformation to the dorsal anterior midcingulate cortex (daMCC), with independent replication. The daMCC encodes the context-specific information necessary to convert from count to worth. This encoding is not simply a representation of utility or preference, but the interaction of the two. Specifically, the relationship of brain activation to value is dependent on individual preference, with both positive and negative slopes across the population depending on whether each individual's preference results in enhancement or diminishment of the valuation. For a given value, across participants, enhanced daMCC activation corresponds to diminished subjective valuation, deactivation to enhanced subjective valuation, and non-modulated activation with non-modulated subjective valuation. Further, functional connectivity analyses identified brain regions (positive connectivity with the inferior frontal gyrus and negative connectivity with the nucleus accumbens) through which contextual information may be integrated into the daMCC and allow for outputs to modulate valuation signals. All analyses were replicated through an independent within-study replication, with initial testing in the gains domain and replication in the intermixed and mirrored losses trials. We also present and discuss an ancillary finding: we were unable to identify parametric value signals for losses through whole-brain analyses, and ROI analyses of the vmPFC presented non-modulation across loss value levels. These results identify the neural locus of the value-to-utility transformation, and provide a specific computational function for the daMCC in the production of subjective valuation through the integration of value, context, and preferences.

Sleep deprivation alters choice strategy without altering uncertainty or loss aversion preferences.

Sleep deprivation alters decision making; however, it is unclear what specific cognitive processes are modified to drive altered choices. In this manuscript, we examined how one night of total sleep deprivation (TSD) alters economic decision making. We specifically examined changes in uncertainty preferences dissociably from changes in the strategy with which participants engage with presented choice information. With high test-retest reliability, we show that TSD does not alter uncertainty preferences or loss aversion. Rather, TSD alters the information the participants rely upon to make their choices. Utilizing a choice strategy metric which contrasts the influence of maximizing and satisficing information on choice behavior, we find that TSD alters the relative reliance on maximizing information and satisficing information, in the gains domain. This alteration is the result of participants both decreasing their reliance on cognitively-complex maximizing information and a concomitant increase in the use of readily-available satisficing information. TSD did not result in a decrease in overall information use in either domain. These results show that sleep deprivation alters decision making by altering the informational strategies that participants employ, without altering their preferences.

Cognitive Fatigue Destabilizes Economic Decision Making Preferences and Strategies.

OBJECTIVE: It is common for individuals to engage in taxing cognitive activity for prolonged periods of time, resulting in cognitive fatigue that has the potential to produce significant effects in behaviour and decision making. We sought to examine whether cognitive fatigue modulates economic decision making. METHODS: We employed a between-subject manipulation design, inducing fatigue through 60 to 90 minutes of taxing cognitive engagement against a control group that watched relaxing videos for a matched period of time. Both before and after the manipulation, participants engaged in two economic decision making tasks (one for gains and one for losses). The analyses focused on two areas of economic decision making--preferences and choice strategies. Uncertainty preferences (risk and ambiguity) were quantified as premium values, defined as the degree and direction in which participants alter the valuation of the gamble in comparison to the certain option. The strategies that each participant engaged in were quantified through a choice strategy metric, which contrasts the degree to which choice behaviour relies upon available satisficing or maximizing information. We separately examined these metrics for alterations within both the gains and losses domains, through the two choice tasks. RESULTS: The fatigue manipulation resulted in significantly greater levels of reported subjective fatigue, with correspondingly higher levels of reported effort during the cognitively taxing activity. Cognitive fatigue did not alter uncertainty preferences (risk or ambiguity) or informational strategies, in either the gains or losses domains. Rather, cognitive fatigue resulted in greater test-retest variability across most of our economic measures. These results indicate that cognitive fatigue destabilizes economic decision making, resulting in inconsistent preferences and informational strategies that may significantly reduce decision quality.

Modulation of incentivized dishonesty by disgust facial expressions.

Disgust modulates moral decisions involving harming others. We recently specified that this effect is bi-directionally modulated by individual sensitivity to disgust. Here, we show that this effect generalizes to the moral domain of honesty and extends to outcomes with real-world impact. We employed a dice-rolling task in which participants were incentivized to dishonestly report outcomes to increase their potential final monetary payoff. Disgust or control facial expressions were presented subliminally on each trial. Our results reveal that the disgust facial expressions altered honest reporting as a bi-directional function moderated by individual sensitivity. Combining these data with those from prior experiments revealed that the effect of disgust presentation on both harm judgments and honesty could be accounted for by the same bidirectional function, with no significant effect of domain. This clearly demonstrates that disgust facial expressions produce the same modulation of moral judgments across different moral foundations (harm and honesty). Our results suggest strong overlap in the cognitive/neural processes of moral judgments across moral foundations, and provide a framework for further studies to specify the integration of emotional information in moral decision making.

Aging and loss decision making: increased risk aversion and decreased use of maximizing information, with correlated rationality and value maximization.

We investigated how adult aging specifically alters economic decision-making, focusing on examining alterations in uncertainty preferences (willingness to gamble) and choice strategies (what gamble information influences choices) within both the gains and losses domains. Within each domain, participants chose between certain monetary outcomes and gambles with uncertain outcomes. We examined preferences by quantifying how uncertainty modulates choice behavior as if altering the subjective valuation of gambles. We explored age-related preferences for two types of uncertainty, risk, and ambiguity. Additionally, we explored how aging may alter what information participants utilize to make their choices by comparing the relative utilization of maximizing and satisficing information types through a choice strategy metric. Maximizing information was the ratio of the expected value of the two options, while satisficing information was the probability of winning. We found age-related alterations of economic preferences within the losses domain, but no alterations within the gains domain. Older adults (OA; 61-80 years old) were significantly more uncertainty averse for both risky and ambiguous choices. OA also exhibited choice strategies with decreased use of maximizing information. Within OA, we found a significant correlation between risk preferences and choice strategy. This linkage between preferences and strategy appears to derive from a convergence to risk neutrality driven by greater use of the effortful maximizing strategy. As utility maximization and value maximization intersect at risk neutrality, this result suggests that OA are exhibiting a relationship between enhanced rationality and enhanced value maximization. While there was variability in economic decision-making measures within OA, these individual differences were unrelated to variability within examined measures of cognitive ability. Our results demonstrate that aging alters economic decision-making for losses through changes in both individual preferences and the strategies individuals employ.

Divergence and Convergence of Risky Decision Making Across Prospective Gains and Losses: Preferences and Strategies.

People choose differently when facing potential gains than when facing potential losses. Clear gross differences in decision making between gains and losses have been empirically demonstrated in numerous studies (e.g., framing effect, risk preference, loss aversion). However, theories maintain that there are strong underlying connections (e.g., reflection effect). We investigated the relationship between gains and losses decision making, examining risk preferences, and choice strategies (the reliance on option information) using a monetary gamble task with interleaved trials. For risk preferences, participants were on average risk averse in the gains domain and risk neutral/seeking in the losses domain. We specifically tested for a theoretically hypothesized correlation between individual risk preferences across the gains and losses domains (the reflection effect), but found no significant relationship in the predicted direction. Interestingly, despite the lack of reflected risk preferences, cross-domain risk preferences were still informative of individual choice behavior. For choice strategies, in both domains participants relied more heavily on the maximizing strategy than the satisficing strategy, with increased reliance on the maximizing strategy in the losses domain. Additionally, while there is no mathematical reliance between the risk preference and strategy metrics, within both domains there were significant relationships between risk preferences and strategies-the more participants relied upon the maximizing strategy the more risk neutral they were (equating value and utility maximization). These results demonstrate the complexity of gains and losses decision making, indicating the apparent contradiction that their underlying cognitive/neural processes are both dissociable and overlapping.

Manipulation detection and preference alterations in a choice blindness paradigm.

OBJECTIVES: It is commonly believed that individuals make choices based upon their preferences and have access to the reasons for their choices. Recent studies in several areas suggest that this is not always the case. In choice blindness paradigms, two-alternative forced-choice in which chosen-options are later replaced by the unselected option, individuals often fail to notice replacement of their chosen option, confabulate explanations for why they chose the unselected option, and even show increased preferences for the unselected-but-replaced options immediately after choice (seconds). Although choice blindness has been replicated across a variety of domains, there are numerous outstanding questions. Firstly, we sought to investigate how individual- or trial-factors modulated detection of the manipulations. Secondly, we examined the nature and temporal duration (minutes vs. days) of the preference alterations induced by these manipulations. METHODS: Participants performed a computerized choice blindness task, selecting the more attractive face between presented pairs of female faces, and providing a typewritten explanation for their choice on half of the trials. Chosen-face cue manipulations were produced on a subset of trials by presenting the unselected face during the choice explanation as if it had been selected. Following all choice trials, participants rated the attractiveness of each face individually, and rated the similarity of each face pair. After approximately two weeks, participants re-rated the attractiveness of each individual face online. RESULTS: Participants detected manipulations on only a small proportion of trials, with detections by fewer than half of participants. Detection rates increased with the number of prior detections, and detection rates subsequent to first detection were modulated by the choice certainty. We show clear short-term modulation of preferences in both manipulated and non-manipulated explanation trials compared to choice-only trials (with opposite directions of effect). Preferences were altered in the direction that subjects were led to believe they selected.

Pre-existing brain states predict risky choices.

Rational decision-making models assume that people resolve an economic problem based on its properties and the underlying utility. Here we challenge this view by examining whether pre-stimulus endogenous neuronal fluctuations can bias economic decisions. We recorded subjects' pre-stimulus neural activation patterns with fMRI before presentation and choice between pairs of certain outcomes and risky gambles. Our results indicate that activities in the left nucleus accumbens and medial frontal gyrus can bias subsequent risky decision making, showing that neuronal activities in regions associated with uncertainty and reward processing are involved in biasing subsequent choice selection. This finding challenges theories which propose that choices merely reveal stable underlying distributions of hedonic utility. Endogenous brain states of this sort might originate from a systematic cause or a stochastic type of neural noise, which can be construed as contextual factors that shape people's decision making.

Moral judgment modulation by disgust is bi-directionally moderated by individual sensitivity.

Modern theories of moral judgment predict that both conscious reasoning and unconscious emotional influences affect the way people decide about right and wrong. In a series of experiments, we tested the effect of subliminal and conscious priming of disgust facial expressions on moral dilemmas. "Trolley-car"-type scenarios were used, with subjects rating how acceptable they found the utilitarian course of action to be. On average, subliminal priming of disgust facial expressions resulted in higher rates of utilitarian judgments compared to neutral facial expressions. Further, in replication, we found that individual change in moral acceptability ratings due to disgust priming was modulated by individual sensitivity to disgust, revealing a bi-directional function. Our second replication extended this result to show that the function held for both subliminally and consciously presented stimuli. Combined across these experiments, we show a reliable bi-directional function, with presentation of disgust expression primes to individuals with higher disgust sensitivity resulting in more utilitarian judgments (i.e., number-based) and presentations to individuals with lower sensitivity resulting in more deontological judgments (i.e., rules-based). Our results may reconcile previous conflicting reports of disgust modulation of moral judgment by modeling how individual sensitivity to disgust determines the direction and degree of this effect.

Association between the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene and mesolimbic responses to rewards.

BACKGROUND: There has been significant progress in identifying genes that confer risk for autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). However, the heterogeneity of symptom presentation in ASDs impedes the detection of ASD risk genes. One approach to understanding genetic influences on ASD symptom expression is to evaluate relations between variants of ASD candidate genes and neural endophenotypes in unaffected samples. Allelic variations in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene confer small but significant risk for ASDs for which the underlying mechanisms may involve associations between variability in oxytocin signaling pathways and neural response to rewards. The purpose of this preliminary study was to investigate the influence of allelic variability in the OXTR gene on neural responses to monetary rewards in healthy adults using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). METHODS: The moderating effects of three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs1042778, rs2268493 and rs237887) of the OXTR gene on mesolimbic responses to rewards were evaluated using a monetary incentive delay fMRI task. RESULTS: T homozygotes of the rs2268493 SNP demonstrated relatively decreased activation in mesolimbic reward circuitry (including the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, insula, thalamus and prefrontal cortical regions) during the anticipation of rewards but not during the outcome phase of the task. Allelic variation of the rs1042778 and rs237887 SNPs did not moderate mesolimbic activation during either reward anticipation or outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: This preliminary study suggests that the OXTR SNP rs2268493, which has been previously identified as an ASD risk gene, moderates mesolimbic responses during reward anticipation. Given previous findings of decreased mesolimbic activation during reward anticipation in ASD, the present results suggest that OXTR may confer ASD risk via influences on the neural systems that support reward anticipation.

Seasonal variation of salivary testosterone in men, normally cycling women, and women using hormonal contraceptives.

Humans' endogenous testosterone concentrations vary over a number of temporal scales, with little known about variation longer than monthly cycles. Past studies of seasonal or circannual variation have principally used male participants and have produced inconsistent results. Thus, little is known about how testosterone concentrations fluctuate throughout the year, whether such variation differs between men and women, and whether there are influences of hormonal contraceptive use. The present study collected saliva samples from a large sample (N=718) of men and women, each collected at one time point within a relatively uniform distribution over a full calendar year. Both men and normally-cycling women displayed seasonal variation in salivary testosterone concentrations, such that testosterone concentrations are maximal in the fall and minimal in the summer. Notably, normally-cycling women had testosterone concentrations that were over 100% greater at their maximum in fall compared to their minimum in summer. Women using hormonal contraceptives not only had consistently lower endogenous testosterone concentrations, but also showed a flatter seasonal testosterone profile. The implications for studies of psychology and human behavioral endocrinology are discussed.

Infrequent, task-irrelevant monetary gains and losses engage dorsolateral and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

Decision making is commonly conceived to reflect the interplay of mutually antagonistic systems: executive processes must inhibit affective information to make adaptive choices. Consistent with this interpretation, prior studies have shown that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) is activated by executive processing and deactivated during emotional processing, with the reverse pattern found within the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC). To evaluate whether this pattern generalizes to other affective stimuli--here, monetary rewards--we modified the emotional oddball task to use behaviorally irrelevant reward stimuli, while matching analysis methods and task parameters to those of previous research. Contrary to the double-dissociation model advanced for emotional stimuli, we found that monetary stimuli produced activations within both the dlPFC and the vlPFC. This suggests that monetary stimuli are treated like affective stimuli by vlPFC but like task-relevant target stimuli by dlPFC. Our results suggest differential functional roles in affective and executive processing for these brain regions: the dlPFC supports contingency processing, while the vlPFC evaluates affective or conceptual information.

Low- and high-testosterone individuals exhibit decreased aversion to economic risk.

Testosterone is positively associated with risk-taking behavior in social domains (e.g., crime, physical aggression). However, the scant research linking testosterone to economic risk preferences presents inconsistent findings. We examined the relationship between endogenous testosterone and individuals' economic preferences (i.e., risk preference, ambiguity preference, and loss aversion) in a large sample (N = 298) of men and women. We found that endogenous testosterone levels have a significant U-shaped association with individuals' risk and ambiguity preferences, but not loss aversion. Specifically, individuals with low or high levels of testosterone (more than 1.5 SD from the mean for their gender) were risk and ambiguity neutral, whereas individuals with intermediate levels of testosterone were risk and ambiguity averse. This relationship was highly similar in men and women. In contrast to received wisdom regarding testosterone and risk, the present data provide the first robust evidence for a nonlinear association between economic preferences and levels of endogenous testosterone.

Neural substrates of contingency learning and executive control: dissociating physical, valuative, and behavioral changes.

Contingency learning is fundamental to cognition. Knowledge about environmental contingencies allows behavioral flexibility, as executive control processes accommodate the demands of novel or changing environments. Studies of experiential learning have focused on the relationship between actions and the values of associated outcomes. However, outcome values have often been confounded with the physical changes in the outcomes themselves. Here, we dissociated contingency learning into valuative and non-valuative forms, using a novel version of the two-alternative choice task, while measuring the neural effects of contingency changes using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Changes in value-relevant contingencies evoked activation in the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), posterior parietal cortex (PPC), and dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC) consistent with prior results (e.g., reversal-learning paradigms). Changes in physical contingencies unrelated to value or to action produced similar activations within the LPFC, indicating that LPFC may engage in generalized contingency learning that is not specific to valuation. In contrast, contingency changes that required behavioral shifts evoked activation localized to the DMPFC, supplementary motor, and precentral cortices, suggesting that these regions play more specific roles within the executive control of behavior.

The effect of acute tryptophan depletion on emotional distraction and subsequent memory.

Serotonin is a key neurotransmitter involved in emotional regulation and memory. A number of studies using acute tryptophan depletion (ATD) in healthy subjects have shown that a temporary serotonin reduction both induces a negative emotional bias and impairs long-term memory. However, little is known about the specific effects of ATD on emotional memory. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we investigated the effect of ATD on negative memory and executive function in healthy volunteers. Our emotional oddball task required participants to distinguish infrequently presented targets from distracting negative and neutral pictures. Memory for the distracting pictures was tested 1 h following the fMRI session. ATD selectively enhanced memory for negative distractors relative to neutral distractors and increased activation in response to the negative distractors in the left orbital-inferior frontal, dorsomedial prefrontal and bilateral angular gyri. ATD also induced greater activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus and anterior cingulate across all stimuli. Stronger frontal activation to distractors was positively correlated with memory performance on ATD but not control days, indicating a possible compensatory mechanism for coping with increased task demand under the ATD challenge. These findings highlight the importance of serotonin in negative memory with implications for mood disorders.

Motor-related signals in the intraparietal cortex encode locations in a hybrid, rather than eye-centered reference frame.

The reference frame used by intraparietal cortex neurons to encode locations is controversial. Many previous studies have suggested eye-centered coding, whereas we have reported that visual and auditory signals employ a hybrid reference frame (i.e., a combination of head- and eye-centered information) (Mullette-Gillman et al. 2005). One possible explanation for this discrepancy is that sensory-related activity, which we studied previously, is hybrid, whereas motor-related activity might be eye centered. Here, we examined the reference frame of visual and auditory saccade-related activity in the lateral and medial banks of the intraparietal sulcus (areas lateral intraparietal area [LIP] and medial intraparietal area [MIP]) of 2 rhesus monkeys. We recorded from 275 single neurons as monkeys performed visual and auditory saccades from different initial eye positions. We found that both visual and auditory signals reflected a hybrid of head- and eye-centered coordinates during both target and perisaccadic task periods rather than shifting to an eye-centered format as the saccade approached. This account differs from numerous previous recording studies. We suggest that the geometry of the receptive field sampling in prior studies was biased in favor of an eye-centered reference frame. Consequently, the overall hybrid nature of the reference frame was overlooked because the non-eye-centered response patterns were not fully characterized.

Eye-centered, head-centered, and complex coding of visual and auditory targets in the intraparietal sulcus.

The integration of visual and auditory events is thought to require a joint representation of visual and auditory space in a common reference frame. We investigated the coding of visual and auditory space in the lateral and medial intraparietal areas (LIP, MIP) as a candidate for such a representation. We recorded the activity of 275 neurons in LIP and MIP of two monkeys while they performed saccades to a row of visual and auditory targets from three different eye positions. We found 45% of these neurons to be modulated by the locations of visual targets, 19% by auditory targets, and 9% by both visual and auditory targets. The reference frame for both visual and auditory receptive fields ranged along a continuum between eye- and head-centered reference frames with approximately 10% of auditory and 33% of visual neurons having receptive fields that were more consistent with an eye- than a head-centered frame of reference and 23 and 18% having receptive fields that were more consistent with a head- than an eye-centered frame of reference, leaving a large fraction of both visual and auditory response patterns inconsistent with both head- and eye-centered reference frames. The results were similar to the reference frame we have previously found for auditory stimuli in the inferior colliculus and core auditory cortex. The correspondence between the visual and auditory receptive fields of individual neurons was weak. Nevertheless, the visual and auditory responses were sufficiently well correlated that a simple one-layer network constructed to calculate target location from the activity of the neurons in our sample performed successfully for auditory targets even though the weights were fit based only on the visual responses. We interpret these results as suggesting that although the representations of space in areas LIP and MIP are not easily described within the conventional conceptual framework of reference frames, they nevertheless process visual and auditory spatial information in a similar fashion.