DECISION MAKING ACROSS PROSPECTIVE GAINS AND LOSSES: DIVERGENCE OF RISK AND VALUE PROCESSING AND CONVERGENCE FOR VALUE-TO-UTILITY TRANSFORMATIONS

Abstract

The goal of the field of decision neuroscience is to understand the neural mechanisms that underlie individual choice behavior. Economic decision making across both gains and losses were investigated at both the behavioral and the neural levels. Independent studies investigated the effects of aging, sleep deprivation, and cognitive fatigue on economic decision making – identifying separable effects for all three states. Contrary to dominant economic theory, no significant correlation between risk preferences in the gains and losses domains was found, suggesting independence. In a fourth behavioral study, this independence was tested and confirmed using an intermixed-trial design. The fifth study, using fMRI, examined the neural mechanisms of the value-to-utility transformation, the process for converting between count and worth. This study demonstrated, with independent within-study replication, that the dorsal anterior midcingulate cortex (daMCC) contains the information necessary to perform the value-to-utility transformation across both gains and losses.