The neural basis of risky choice with affective outcomes

Both normative and many descriptive theories of decision making under risk are based on the notion that outcomes are weighted by their probability, with subsequent maximization of the (subjective) expected outcome. Numerous investigations from psychology, economics, and neuroscience have produced evidence consistent with this notion. However, this research has typically investigated choices involving relatively affect-poor, monetary outcomes. We compared choice in relatively affect-poor, monetary lottery problems with choice in relatively affect-rich medical decision problems. Computational modeling of behavioral data and model-based neuroimaging analyses provide converging evidence for substantial differences in the respective decision mechanisms. Relative to affect-poor choices, affect-rich choices yielded a more strongly curved probability weighting function of cumulative prospect theory, thus signaling that the psychological impact of probabilities is strongly diminished for affect-...

风险下决策的规范式理论与诸多描述性理论，均基于“结果会依据其发生概率进行加权，并随后最大化（主观）期望结果”这一核心假设。心理学、经济学与神经科学领域的大量研究均提供了支持该假设的实验证据。但此类研究通常仅考察涉及情感贫弱型金钱收益的决策选择。本研究将涉及情感贫弱型金钱彩票的决策选择，与涉及情感丰沛型医疗决策的选择进行了对比。对行为数据的计算建模与基于模型的神经影像分析，均提供了聚合性证据，表明两类决策机制存在显著差异。相较于情感贫弱型决策，情感丰沛型决策下的累积前景理论（cumulative prospect theory）概率加权函数（probability weighting function）曲线更为陡峭，这表明概率对决策的心理影响在涉及...