Value normalization in decision making: theory and evidence

Rangel, Antonio; Clithero, John A.

doi:10.1016/j.conb.2012.07.011

Cited by 135 publications

(136 citation statements)

References 76 publications

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“…In addition to normalization to the immediate choice set, the brain also displays normalization to the recent history of rewards (46)(47)(48). In theory, temporal normalization can also generate context dependence (29), but the consequences of such adaptation in value coding and potential interaction with choice circuit normalization remain currently unknown. Importantly, the normalization model provides a testable hypothesis of causality: Disrupting value normalization should reduce the magnitude of context-dependent choice inefficiency.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Normalization is a general neural mechanism for context-dependent decision making

Louie

Khaw

Glimcher

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

290

440

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Understanding the neural code is critical to linking brain and behavior. In sensory systems, divisive normalization seems to be a canonical neural computation, observed in areas ranging from retina to cortex and mediating processes including contrast adaptation, surround suppression, visual attention, and multisensory integration. Recent electrophysiological studies have extended these insights beyond the sensory domain, demonstrating an analogous algorithm for the value signals that guide decision making, but the effects of normalization on choice behavior are unknown. Here, we show that choice models using normalization generate significant (and classically irrational) choice phenomena driven by either the value or number of alternative options. In value-guided choice experiments, both monkey and human choosers show novel context-dependent behavior consistent with normalization. These findings suggest that the neural mechanism of value coding critically influences stochastic choice behavior and provide a generalizable quantitative framework for examining context effects in decision making.fundamental question in neuroscience is how the brain represents behaviorally relevant variables. Neural coding is governed by a small number of canonical computations implemented in diverse circuits and mechanisms, a prominent example being divisive normalization, in which the initial inputdriven activity of a neuron is divided by the summed activity of a large pool of neighboring neurons. Originally proposed to explain nonlinear responses in primary visual cortex (1), divisive normalization has been widely observed in sensory systems and characterizes responses including contrast gain control in the retina and thalamus (2, 3), surround suppression in the middle temporal area (4, 5), ventral stream responses to multiple objects (6), and gain control in auditory cortex (7). Normalization also explains neural activity underlying higher-order processes such as multisensory integration (8) and visual attention (9). This ubiquity may reflect the role of normalization in generating normative coding efficiency via processes such as gain control, feature invariance, and redundancy reduction (10-12).Recent neurophysiological evidence shows that such normalization processes extend beyond sensory areas to higherorder cortical areas involved in decision making. In parietal and premotor cortex, neurons specifying individual actions are strongly modulated by the value of those actions (13-16). Importantly, this value representation is encoded in a normalized form: Firing rates are increased by increases in the value of the represented action and suppressed by increases in the value of alternative actions (17-19). Such normalization, however, introduces an inherent context dependence in neural coding. In the visual system, normalization underlies contextual modulation of activity by extrareceptive field stimuli, for example surround suppression in visual cortical neurons (12,20). In decision-related areas, normalization produces an analogo...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These simulations provide a quantitative examination of qualitative predictions about the effects of normalization on decision making (17,29). Furthermore, we examine human and monkey behavior under conditions in which the model specifically predicts context-driven distortions of choice behavior.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Normalization is a general neural mechanism for context-dependent decision making

Louie

Khaw

Glimcher

2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

290

440

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“…As the value of C grows, distributions representing noisy value estimates of A and B exhibit more overlap, increasing the probability that the inferior option B is mistakenly chosen over A (although in other circumstances, increasing the value of C may lead B to be selected less often, and rival models have been proposed to account for this alternative finding [16, 17]). Indeed, single-cell recordings from macaques making choices among juice or food rewards suggest that neural encoding of value in the parietal and orbitofrontal cortices is scaled by the context provided by the range of possible options [18]. When one measures the scaling factor (or ‘gain’) that quantifies how subjective value (e.g.…”

Section: Irrational Economic Decisionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In some situations, the most diagnostic features will be those that are most likely to occur, given the statistics of the natural environment or the local context. For example, an efficient system will become most sensitive to high-valued stimuli when they are abundant, and to low-valued stimuli during times of scarcity [12, 18]. Formally, this strategy maximises the information that a neuronal system can encode and transmit, thereby optimising processing demands to match the available resources [25].…”

Section: Efficient Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do humans make good decisions?

Summerfield

Tsetsos

2015

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

137

131

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Human performance on perceptual classification tasks approaches that of an ideal observer, but economic decisions are often inconsistent and intransitive, with preferences reversing according to the local context. We discuss the view that suboptimal choices may result from the efficient coding of decision-relevant information, a strategy that allows expected inputs to be processed with higher gain than unexpected inputs. Efficient coding leads to ‘robust’ decisions that depart from optimality but maximise the information transmitted by a limited-capacity system in a rapidly-changing world. We review recent work showing that when perceptual environments are variable or volatile, perceptual decisions exhibit the same suboptimal context-dependence as economic choices, and propose a general computational framework that accounts for findings across the two domains.

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“…Normalization was originally proposed to explain activity in the primary visual cortex but normalization may also explain higher-order processes such as visual attention and decisionmaking (Matteo andDavid, 2011, Rangel andClithero, 2012). It is not yet clear which, if any, of the currently proposed mechanisms will prove to underlie the context-dependent decisions made by humans, but the integration of ideas from neuroscience and behavioural work is leading to models that better describe the decisions people actually make.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of health in human faces is context-dependent

Morgan

Morton

Whitehead

et al. 2016

Behavioural Processes

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HighlightsYellow colouration influences the perception of health in faces.The evaluation of which face looks the healthiest is influenced by the other faces present at the time of the choice.For many traits that influence health perception there may be no optimum preferred level. 3 AbstractWhen making decisions between options, humans are expected to choose the option that returns the highest benefit. In practice, however, adding inferior alternatives to the choice set can alter these decisions. Here we investigated whether decisions over the facial features that people find healthy looking can also be affected by the context in which they see those faces.To do this we examined the effect of choice set on the perception of health of images of faces of light-skinned Caucasian females. We manipulated apparent facial health by changing yellowness of the skin: the healthy faces were moderately yellow and the less healthy faces were either much more yellow or much less yellow. In each experiment, two healthy faces were presented along with a third, less healthy face. When the third face was much more yellow, participants chose the more yellow of the two healthy faces more often as the most healthy. However, when the third face was the least yellow, participants chose the less yellow of the two healthy faces more often. A further experiment confirmed that this result is not due to a generalised preference for an intermediate option. These results extend our understanding of context-dependent decision-making in humans, and suggest that comparative evaluation may be a common feature across many different kinds of choices that humans have to make.

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Value normalization in decision making: theory and evidence

Cited by 135 publications

References 76 publications

Normalization is a general neural mechanism for context-dependent decision making

Normalization is a general neural mechanism for context-dependent decision making

Do humans make good decisions?

Assessment of health in human faces is context-dependent

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