Fixation patterns in simple choice reflect optimal information sampling

Callaway, Frederick; Rangel, António O. S. S.; Griffiths, Tom

doi:10.31234/osf.io/57v6k

Cited by 45 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…If gaze fixation is what focuses information processing on each option in turn, it could be that a DM will be inclined to gaze more at options whose values are less certain. Similar to the concept of exploration in the classic exploration/exploitation dilemma (e.g., Daw et al, 2006), this gaze bias could be instrumental for the DM to make more informed choices (Callaway et al, 2020). Or, it could be that a DM will be inclined to gaze more at options whose values are more certain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Empirical Test of the Role of Value Certainty in Decision Making

Lee

Coricelli

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Most contemporary models of value-based decisions are built on value estimates that are typically self-reported by the decision maker. Such models have been successful in accounting for choice accuracy and response time, and more recently choice confidence. The fundamental driver of such models is choice difficulty, which is almost always defined as the absolute value difference between the subjective value ratings of the options in a choice set. Yet a decision maker is not necessarily able to provide a value estimate with the same degree of certainty for each option that he encounters. We propose that choice difficulty is determined not only by absolute value distance of choice options, but also by their value certainty. In this study, we first demonstrate the reliability of the concept of an option-specific value certainty using three different experimental measures. We then demonstrate the influence that value certainty has on choice, including accuracy (consistency), choice confidence, response time, and choice-induced preference change (i.e., the degree to which value estimates change from pre-to post-choice evaluation). We conclude with a suggestion of how popular contemporary models of choice (e.g., race model, drift-diffusion model) could be improved by including option-specific value certainty as one of their inputs.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Empirical Test of the Role of Value Certainty in Decision Making

Lee

Coricelli

2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…Further work in which the size of the set is increased would be required to test this idea more stringently. Notably, two recent pre-prints have also introduced models to explain how the attentional patterns in choice are generated assuming optimal information sampling ( Jang et al, 2020 ; Callaway et al, 2020 ). Both models are based on Bayesian updates of value beliefs, with visual attention playing a role in selecting the information to sample.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual attention modulates the integration of goal-relevant evidence and not value

Sepúlveda

Usher

Davies

et al. 2020

eLife

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When choosing between options, such as food items presented in plain view, people tend to choose the option they spend longer looking at. The prevailing interpretation is that visual attention increases value. However, in previous studies, 'value' was coupled to a behavioural goal, since subjects had to choose the item they preferred. This makes it impossible to discern if visual attention has an effect on value, or, instead, if attention modulates the information most relevant for the goal of the decision-maker. Here we present the results of two independent studies—a perceptual and a value-based task—that allow us to decouple value from goal-relevant information using specific task-framing. Combining psychophysics with computational modelling, we show that, contrary to the current interpretation, attention does not boost value, but instead it modulates goal-relevant information. This work provides a novel and more general mechanism by which attention interacts with choice.

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“…2), we expect the nervous system to implement it only approximately (e.g., similar to [41] for multi-alternative decisions). Such an approximation has been recently suggested by Callaway and colleagues [10], where they used approaches from rational inattention to approximate optimal decision-making in the presence of an attentional bottleneck. Unlike our work, they assumed that the unattended item is completely ignored, and therefore could not investigate the effect of graded shifts of attentional resources between items (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optimal policy for attention-modulated decisions explains human fixation behavior

Jang

Sharma

Drugowitsch

2020

Preprint

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Traditional accumulation-to-bound decision-making models assume that all choice options are processed simultaneously with equal attention. In real life decisions, however, humans tend to alternate their visual fixation between individual items in order to efficiently gather relevant information [46, 23, 21, 12, 15]. These fixations also causally affect one’s choices, biasing them toward the longer-fixated item [38, 2, 25]. We derive a normative decision-making model in which fixating a choice item boosts information about that item. In contrast to previous models [25, 39], we assume that attention enhances the reliability of information rather than its magnitude, consistent with neurophysiological findings [3, 13, 29, 45]. Furthermore, our model actively controls fixation changes to optimize information gathering. We show that the optimal model reproduces fixation patterns and fixation-related choice biases seen in human decision-makers, and provides a Bayesian computational rationale for the fixation bias. This insight led to additional behavioral predictions that we confirmed in human behavioral data. Finally, we explore the consequences of changing the relative allocation of cognitive resources to the attended versus the unattended item, and show that decision performance is benefited by a more balanced spread of cognitive resources.

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Fixation patterns in simple choice reflect optimal information sampling

Cited by 45 publications

References 46 publications

An Empirical Test of the Role of Value Certainty in Decision Making

An Empirical Test of the Role of Value Certainty in Decision Making

Visual attention modulates the integration of goal-relevant evidence and not value

Optimal policy for attention-modulated decisions explains human fixation behavior

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