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Publications (83)
Across five experiments (N = 1,714), we test whether people engage in wishful thinking to alleviate anxiety about adverse future outcomes. Participants perform pattern recognition tasks in which some patterns may result in an electric shock or a monetary loss. Diagnostic of wishful thinking, participants are less likely to correctly identify patter...
Contrary to the normative decision-making standpoint, empirical studies have repeatedly reported that risk preferences are affected by the disclosure of choice outcomes (feedback). Although no consensus has yet emerged regarding the properties and mechanisms of this effect, a widespread and intuitive hypothesis is that repeated feedback affects ris...
When two cognitive processes contribute to a behavioral output—each process producing a specific distribution of the behavioral variable of interest—and when the mixture proportion of these two processes varies as a function of an experimental condition, a common density point should be present in the observed distributions of the data across said...
While navigating a fundamentally uncertain world, humans and animals constantly evaluate the probability of their decisions, actions or statements being correct. When explicitly elicited, these confidence estimates typically correlates positively with neural activity in a ventromedial-prefrontal (VMPFC) network and negatively in a dorsolateral and...
The field of computational psychiatry advocates for the use of behavioral task-derived computational measures to improve our understanding, diagnosis and treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders. However, recent meta-analyses in cognitive psychology suggest that behavioral and computational measures are less stable than self-reported surveys as asse...
Contrary to the normative decision-making standpoint, empirical studies have repeatedly reported that risk preferences are affected by the disclosure of choice outcomes (feedback). Although no consensus has yet emerged regarding the properties and mechanisms of this effect, a widespread and intuitive hypothesis is that repeated feedback affects ris...
We systematically misjudge our own performance in simple economic tasks. First, we generally overestimate our ability to make correct choices-a bias called overconfidence. Second, we are more confident in our choices when we seek gains than when we try to avoid losses-a bias we refer to as the valence-induced confidence bias. Strikingly, these two...
Globalizing economies and long-distance trade rely on individuals from different cultural groups to negotiate agreement on what to give and take. In such settings, individuals often lack insight into what interaction partners deem fair and appropriate, potentially seeding misunderstandings, frustration, and conflict. Here, we examine how individual...
While navigating a fundamentally uncertain world, humans and animals constantly produce subjective confidence judgments, thereby evaluating the probability of their decisions, actions or statements being correct. Confidence typically correlates with neural activity positively in a ventromedial-prefrontal (VMPFC) network and negatively in a dorsolat...
Standard models of decision-making assume each option is associated with subjective value, regardless of whether this value is inferred from experience (experiential) or explicitly instructed probabilistic outcomes (symbolic). In this study, we present results that challenge the assumption of unified representation of experiential and symbolic valu...
Highlights
•Promoting health benefits is necessary but insufficient to foster sustained engagement in physical activity (PA).
•Our formal decision-making model explains why health benefits hold a weak subjective value.
•In this model, expected health benefits are jointly discounted by effort-discounting, delay-discounting, and beliefs distortion.
•...
Background
Tourette syndrome (TS) as well as its most common comorbidities are associated with a higher propensity for risky behaviour in everyday life. However, it is unclear whether this increased risk propensity in real-life contexts translates into a generally increased attitude towards risk. We aimed to assess decision-making under risk and am...
Most individuals are now aware of health benefits of physical activity (PA) but remain physically inactive. Mobilizing a multidisciplinary approach at the crossroads between decision-making sciences, we investigate why highlighting the health benefits of PA is unlikely to promote a sustained engagement in PA. Essential features of decision making –...
Aim:
Compulsivity is a common phenotype amongst psychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and gambling disorder (GD). Deficiencies in metacognition, such as the inability to estimate ones' performance via confidence judgments could contribute to pathological decision-making. Earlier research has shown that OCD patients exh...
Humans do not integrate new information objectively: outcomes carrying a positive affective value and evidence confirming one’s own prior belief are overweighed. Until recently, theoretical and empirical accounts of the positivity and confirmation biases assumed them to be specific to ‘high-level’ belief updates. We present evidence against this ac...
Confidence is typically defined as a subjective judgment about whether a decision is right. Decisions are based on sources of information that come from various cognitive domains and are processed in different brain systems. An unsettled question is whether the brain computes confidence in a similar manner whatever the domain or in a manner that wo...
The multi-step learning paradigm has become the dominant paradigm to investigate the trade-off between model-free reinforcement learning – which only leverages state-action-reward associations – and model-based reinforcement learning – which additionally builds on an explicit representation of state-transitions. Experimentally, while reward values...
A growing body of evidence suggests that, during decision-making, BOLD signal in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) correlates both with motivational variables – such as incentives and expected values – and metacognitive variables – such as confidence judgments – which reflect the subjective probability of being correct. At the behavioral l...
To choose between options of different natures, standard decision models presume that a single representational system ultimately indexes their subjective value on a common scale, regardless of how they are constructed. To challenge this assumption, we systematically investigated hybrid decisions between experiential options, whose value is built f...
To choose between options of different natures, standard decision models presume that a single representational system ultimately indexes their subjective value on a common scale, regardless of how they are constructed. To challenge this assumption, we systematically investigated hybrid decisions between experiential options, whose value is built f...
Compulsivity is a common phenotype amongst various psychiatric disorders, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and gambling disorder (GD). Deficiencies in metacognition, such as the inability to properly estimates ones' own performance via well-calibrated confidence judgments could contribute to pathological decision-making in these psychiat...
Confidence is typically defined as a subjective judgment about whether a decision is right. Decisions are based on sources of information that come from various cognitive domains and are processed in different brain systems. An unsettled question is whether the brain computes confidence in a similar manner whatever the domain or in a manner that wo...
Anxiety is a common affective state, characterized by the subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over an anticipated event. Anxiety is suspected to have important negative consequences on cognition, decision-making, and learning. Yet, despite a recent surge in studies investigating the specific effects of anxiety on reinforcement-learning, no co...
A wealth of evidence in perceptual and economic decision-making research suggests that the subjective assessment of one option is influenced by the context. A series of studies provides evidence that the same coding principles apply to situations where decisions are shaped by past outcomes, that is, in reinforcement-learning situations. In bandit t...
A wealth of evidence in perceptual and economic decision-making research suggests that the subjective value of one option is determined by other available options (i.e. the context). A series of studies provides evidence that the same coding principles apply to situations where decisions are shaped by past outcomes, i.e. in reinforcement-learning s...
We systematically misjudge our own performance in simple economic tasks. First, we generally overestimate our ability to make correct choices – a bias called overconfidence. Second, we are more confident in our choices when we seek gains than when we try to avoid losses – a bias we refer to as the valence-induced confidence bias. Strikingly, these...
A growing body of evidence suggests that, during decision-making, BOLD signal in the VMPFC correlates both with motivational variables – such as incentives and expected values – and metacognitive variables – such as confidence judgments, which reflect the subjective probability of being correct. At the behavioral level, we recently demonstrated tha...
In simple instrumental-learning tasks, humans learn to seek gains and to avoid losses equally well. Yet, two effects of valence are observed. First, decisions in loss-contexts are slower. Second, loss contexts decrease individuals’ confidence in their choices. Whether these two effects are two manifestations of a single mechanism or whether they ca...
Classical value-based decision theories state that economic choices are solely based on the value of available options. Experimental evidence suggests, however, that individuals’ choices are biased towards default options, prompted by the framing of decisions. Although the effects of default options created by exogenous framing–such as how choice o...
Classical value-based decision theories state that economic choices are solely based on the value of available options. Experimental evidence suggests, however, that individuals'; choices are biased towards default options, prompted by the framing of decisions. Although the effects of default options created by exogenous framing – such as how choic...
Anxiety is a common affective state, characterized by the subjectively unpleasant feelings of dread over an anticipated event. Anxiety is suspected to have important negative consequences on cognition, decision-making and learning. Yet, despite a recent surge in studies investigating the specific effects of anxiety on reinforcement-learning, no coh...
Understanding how people rate their confidence is critical for the characterization of a wide range of perceptual, memory, motor and cognitive processes. To enable the continued exploration of these processes, we created a large database of confidence studies spanning a broad set of paradigms, participant populations and fields of study. The data f...
Competitions are part and parcel of daily life and require people to invest time and energy to gain advantage over others and to avoid (the risk of ) falling behind. Whereas the behavioral mechanisms underlying competition are well documented, its neurocognitive underpinnings remain poorly understood.We addressed this using neuroimaging and computa...
This article review current neurobiological models of decision-making. The dominant framework is based on a two-stage model, where the first stage (valuation) produces the values of available actions and goods, and the second stage (choice) effectuate the choice by selecting the option with the highest value. Human and non-human primate neurobiolog...
Our behavior is constantly accompanied by a sense of confidence and its’ precision is critical for adequate adaptation and survival. Importantly, abnormal confidence judgments that do not reflect reality may play a crucial role in pathological decision-making typically seen in psychiatric disorders. In this review, we propose abnormalities of confi...
Explaining and predicting individual behavioural differences induced by clinical and social factors constitutes one of the most promising applications of neuroimaging. In this Perspective, we discuss the theoretical and statistical foundations of the analyses of inter-individual differences in task-related functional neuroimaging. Leveraging a five...
Understanding how people rate their confidence is critical for characterizing a wide range of perceptual, memory, motor, and cognitive processes. However, progress has been slowed by the difficulty of collecting new data and the unavailability of existing data. To address this issue, we created a large database of confidence studies spanning a broa...
Reinforcement learning (RL) models describe how humans and animals learn by trial-and-error to select actions that maximize rewards and minimize punishments. Traditional RL models focus exclusively on choices, thereby ignoring the interactions between choice preference and response time (RT), or how these interactions are influenced by contextual f...
The ability to correctly estimate the probability of one’s choices being correct is fundamental to optimally re-evaluate previous choices or to arbitrate between different decision strategies. Experimental evidence nonetheless suggests that this metacognitive process—confidence judgment- is susceptible to numerous biases. Here, we investigate the e...
In simple probabilistic instrumental-learning tasks, humans learn to seek reward and to avoid punishment equally well. Despite this remarkable symmetry in choice accuracy between gain and loss contexts, two recent effects of valence have been independently documented in reinforcement learning. First, decisions in a loss-context are slower, which is...
Humans vary substantially in their willingness to take risks. In a combined sample of over one million individuals, we conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of general risk tolerance, adventurousness, and risky behaviors in the driving, drinking, smoking, and sexual domains. We identified 611 approximately independent genetic loci associ...
Humans vary substantially in their willingness to take risks. In a combined sample of over one million individuals, we conducted genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of general risk tolerance, adventurousness, and risky behaviors in the driving, drinking, smoking, and sexual domains. We identified 611 approximately independent genetic loci associ...
Our behavior is constantly accompanied by a sense of confidence. Its precision is critical for adequate adaption and survival. Inaccurate confidence judgments may result in pathological decision-making and eventually in psychiatric disorders. In this review, we propose abnormalities of confidence as a new model of interpreting psychiatric symptoms....
In economics and perceptual decision-making contextual effects are well documented, where decision weights are adjusted as a function of the distribution of stimuli. Yet, in reinforcement learning literature whether and how contextual information pertaining to decision states is integrated in learning algorithms has received comparably little atten...
The extent to which subjective awareness influences reward processing, and thereby affects future decisions is currently largely unknown. In the present report, we investigated this question in a reinforcement-learning framework, combining perceptual masking, computational modeling and electroencephalographic recordings (human male and female parti...
The extent to which subjective awareness influences reward processing, and thereby affects future decisions is currently largely unknown. In the present report, we investigated this question in a reinforcement-learning framework, combining perceptual masking, computational modeling and electroencephalographic recordings (human male and female parti...
When humans and animals learn by trial-and-error to select the most advantageous action, the progressive increase in action selection accuracy due to learning is typically accompanied by a decrease in the time needed to execute this action. Both choice and response time (RT) data can thus provide information about decision and learning processes. H...
The ability to correctly estimate the probability of one's choices being correct is fundamental to optimally re-evaluate previous choices or to arbitrate between different decision strategies. Experimental evidence nonetheless suggests that this metacognitive process -referred to as a confidence judgment- is susceptible to numerous biases. We inves...
Decisions are accompanied by a feeling of confidence, that is, a belief about the decision being correct. Confidence accuracy is critical, notably in high-stakes situations such as medical or financial decision-making. We investigated how incentive motivation influences confidence accuracy by combining a perceptual task with a confidence incentiviz...
In economics and in perceptual decision-making contextual effects are well documented, where decision weights are adjusted as a function of the distribution of stimuli. Yet, in reinforcement learning literature whether and how contextual information pertaining to decision states is integrated in learning algorithms has received comparably little at...
In economics and in perceptual decision-making contextual effects are well documented, where decision weights are adjusted as a function of the distribution of stimuli. Yet, in reinforcement learning literature whether and how contextual information pertaining to decision states is integrated in learning algorithms has received comparably little at...
Decisions are accompanied by a feeling of confidence, i.e., a belief about the decision being correct. Confidence accuracy is critical, notably in high-stakes situations such as medical or financial decisionmaking. Here, we investigated how incentive motivation influences confidence accuracy by combining a perceptual task with a confidence incentiv...
When forming and updating beliefs about future life outcomes, people tend to consider good news and to disregard bad news. This tendency is assumed to support the optimism bias. Whether this learning bias is specific to ‘high-level’ abstract belief update or a particular expression of a more general ‘low-level’ reinforcement learning process is unk...
The notion of “mixtures” has become pervasive in behavioral and cognitive sciences, due to the success of dual-process theories of cognition. However, providing support for such dual-process theories is not trivial, as it crucially requires properties in the data that are specific to mixture of cognitive processes. In theory, one such property coul...
Mimetic desire (MD), the spontaneous propensity to pursue goals that others pursue, is a case of social influence that is believed to shape preferences. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is defined by both atypical interests and altered social interaction. We investigated whether MD is lower in adults with ASD compared to typically developed adults an...
Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals1. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample1, 2 of 101,069 individu...
While forming and updating beliefs about future life outcomes, people tend to consider good news and to disregard bad news. This tendency is supposed to support the optimism bias. Whether learning bias is specific to high-level abstract belief update or a particular expression of a more general low-level reinforcement learning process is unknown. H...
Characterizing inter-individual differences induced by clinical and social factors constitutes one of the most promising applications of neuroimaging. Paving the way for such applications, neuroimaging studies often report between-group differences in “activations” or correlations between such “activations” and individual traits. Here we raise caut...
Poster - Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroeconomics 2015 - Miami
A key process in decision-making is estimating the value of possible outcomes. Growing evidence suggests that different types of values are automatically encoded in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC). Here we extend this idea by suggesting that any overt judgment is accompanied by a second-order valuation (a confidence estimate), which is a...
: Neuro-economics investigates the neural bases of value-based decision-making. To achieve this goal, most of the human functional imaging studies in neuro-economics use subject-specific continuous regressors –values-derived from explicit ratings or binary choices to model brain signal. Such parametric values have been robustly mapped in a limbic n...
A major challenge for decision theory is to account for the instability of expressed preferences across time and context. Such variability could arise from specific properties of the brain system used to assign subjective values. Growing evidence has identified the ventrome-dial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) as a key node of the human brain valuation s...
In this chapter, we expose how behavioral economists, experimental psychologists, and cognitive neuroscientists joined their efforts and merged two fields of investigation: reward learning and choice behavior. This collaboration was made possible by technical progress—the availability of brain-imaging scanners and conceptual links—the use of motiva...
Many choice situations require imagining potential outcomes, a capacity that was shown to involve memory brain regions such as the hippocampus. We reasoned that the quality of hippocampus-mediated simulation might therefore condition the subjective value assigned to imagined outcomes. We developed a novel paradigm to assess the impact of hippocampu...
The spread of desires among individuals is widely believed to shape motivational drives in human populations. However, objective evidence for this phenomenon and insights into the underlying brain mechanisms are still lacking. Here we show that participants rated objects as more desirable once perceived as the goals of another agent's action. We th...
