A Common Mechanism Underlying Food Choice and Social Decisions

Abstract

People make numerous decisions every day including perceptual decisions such as walking through a crowd, decisions over primary rewards such as what to eat, and social decisions that require balancing own and others’ benefits. The unifying principles behind choices in various domains are, however, still not well understood. Mathematical models that describe choice behavior in specific contexts have provided important insights into the computations that may underlie decision making in the brain. However, a critical and largely unanswered question is whether these models generalize from one choice context to another. Here we show that a model adapted from the perceptual decision-making domain and estimated on choices over food rewards accurately predicts choices and reaction times in four independent sets of subjects making social decisions. The robustness of the model across domains provides behavioral evidence for a common decision-making process in perceptual, primary reward, and social decision making.

Diffusion Decision Model: Current Issues and History

“…This and other diffusion models have been used to account for, among other things, value-based decision, social choice, and purchasing decisions [153-155,159,208-211]…”

The determinants of food choice

“…Such models can link brain imaging data with experimental behavioural data in a predictive way, as in the 'spiking search over time & space model' that has been developed to analyse attentional processes (100). Relatively simple mathematical models can capture important features of value-based decisions well, and in a similar way for food-based decisions as for social decisions, indicating that there is a common computational framework by which different types of value-based decisions are made (101). At a high level, the aim must be to generate agent-based models that describe by a set of explicit rules all the factors that influence food choice, validating each of the rules by a mechanistic understanding of the neurobiological and physiological mechanisms that implement these rules.…”

Information Foraging for Perceptual Decisions

“…The way information is sampled can influence choice behavior in perceptual tasks, value-based decision making and experiential risky choice paradigms (Glaholt & Reingold, 2009Hills & Hertwig, 2010;Krajbich et al, 2010Krajbich et al, , 2015Krajbich & Rangel, 2011;Noguchi & Stewart, 2014;Russo & Leclerc, 1994;Shimojo et al, 2003). Computational models of decision making typically focus on the overall choice, given that a certain amount of information is available to the decision maker.…”

“…The way information is sampled can influence the outcome of the decision in perceptual tasks (Glaholt & Reingold, 2009Russo & Leclerc, 1994;Shimojo, Simion, Shimojo, & Scheier, 2003), value-based judgments (Krajbich, Armel, & Rangel, 2010;Krajbich, Hare, Bartling, Morishima, & Fehr, 2015;Krajbich & Rangel, 2011;Noguchi & Stewart, 2014) and in risky gambles (Hills & Hertwig, 2010). Most theory development across these different domains of decision making has focused on the overarching decision process: How do humans use the acquired information in order to come to a decision?…”

“…In recent years, there has been a great deal of interest in the relationship between gaze behavior and decision making (Glaholt & Reingold, 2009;Krajbich et al, 2010Krajbich et al, , 2015Krajbich & Rangel, 2011;Noguchi & Stewart, 2014;Russo & Leclerc, 1994;Shimojo et al, 2003). Specifically, it has been shown that the option fixated for longer and fixated last is more likely to be chosen (Glaholt & Reingold, 2009;Krajbich et al, 2010;Krajbich & Rangel, 2011;Shimojo et al, 2003).…”