scholarly journals Midfrontal theta and pupil dilation parametrically track subjective conflict (but also surprise) during intertemporal choice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hause Lin ◽  
Blair Saunders ◽  
Cendri A Hutcherson ◽  
Michael Inzlicht
Keyword(s):  
Intertemporal Choice ◽  
Economic Modeling ◽  
Pupil Dilation ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
List Type ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Adaptive Shifts ◽  
Neurophysiological Basis

AbstractMany everyday choices are based on personal, subjective preferences. When choosing between two options, we often feel conflicted, especially when trading off costs and benefits occurring at different times (e.g., saving for later versus spending now). Although previous work has investigated the neurophysiological basis of conflict during inhibitory control tasks, less is known about subjective conflict resulting from competing subjective preferences. In this pre-registered study, we investigated subjective conflict during intertemporal choice, whereby participants chose between smaller immediate versus larger delayed rewards (e.g., $15 today vs. $22 in 30 days). We used economic modeling to parametrically vary eleven different levels of conflict, and recorded EEG data and pupil dilation. Midfrontal theta power, derived from EEG, correlated with pupil responses, and our results suggest that these signals track different gradations of subjective conflict. Unexpectedly, both signals were also maximally enhanced when decisions were surprisingly easy. Therefore, these signals may track events requiring increased attention and adaptive shifts in behavioral responses, with subjective conflict being only one type of such event. Our results suggest that the neural systems underlying midfrontal theta and pupil responses interact when weighing costs and benefits during intertemporal choice. Thus, understanding these interactions might elucidate how individuals resolve self-control conflicts.HighlightsModeled conflict during intertemporal choice and measured EEG and pupil responses.Midfrontal theta and pupil responses parametrically tracked subjective conflict.But theta and pupil responses were also large when decisions were surprisingly easy.These signals may implement adaptive control during value-guided choice.

scholarly journals Midfrontal theta and pupil dilation parametrically track subjective conflict (but also surprise) during intertemporal choice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hause Lin ◽  
Blair Saunders ◽  
Cendri Hutcherson ◽  
Michael Inzlicht
Keyword(s):  
Intertemporal Choice ◽  
Economic Modeling ◽  
Pupil Dilation ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Adaptive Shifts ◽  
Neurophysiological Basis ◽  
Different Levels

Many everyday choices are based on personal, subjective preferences. When choosing between two options, we often feel conflicted, especially when trading off costs and benefits occurring at different times (e.g., saving for later versus spending now). Although previous work has investigated the neurophysiological basis of conflict during inhibitory control tasks, less is known about subjective conflict resulting from competing subjective preferences. In this pre-registered study, we investigated subjective conflict during intertemporal choice, whereby participants chose between smaller immediate versus larger delayed rewards (e.g., $15 today vs. $22 in 30 days). We used economic modeling to parametrically vary eleven different levels of conflict, and recorded EEG data and pupil dilation. Midfrontal theta power, derived from EEG, correlated with pupil responses, and our results suggest that these signals track different gradations of subjective conflict. Unexpectedly, both signals were also maximally enhanced when decisions were surprisingly easy. Therefore, these signals may track events requiring increased attention and adaptive shifts in behavioral responses, with subjective conflict being only one type of such event. Our results suggest that the neural systems underlying midfrontal theta and pupil responses interact when weighing costs and benefits during intertemporal choice. Thus, understanding these interactions might elucidate how individuals resolve self-control conflicts.

Goal Relevance and Desirability of Virtuous Behavior in Satisfying Affiliative and Pathogen Avoidance Needs

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitch Brown
Keyword(s):  
Group Living ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Behavioral Repertoire ◽  
Fundamental Nature ◽  
Virtuous Behavior ◽  
Goal Relevance ◽  
Effective Group ◽  
Pathogen Avoidance

Recent findings suggest that behavioral repertoires frequently conceptualized as virtuous possess a fundamental nature that implicates virtues as highly desirable in facilitating group living through factors of caring, self-control, and inquisitiveness. Although much of this desirability has previously demonstrated in mating domains, it could be possible their benefits extend to affiliative and pathogen-avoidant domains. Two studies (N=285) sought to determine the potential costs and benefits of associating with virtuous individuals (Study 1) and how these affordances could shape subsequent interpersonal preferences (Study 2). In Study 1, participants inferred a caring behavioral repertoire as particularly effective at facilitating both affiliative and pathogen-avoidant goals, whereas inquisitiveness was perceived as threatening to pathogen-avoidant goals. Study 2 provides evidence dispositionally heightened affiliative interests heightened preferences for caring, but pathogen-avoidant motives did not influence preferences. I frame results from an evolutionary perspective and synthesize it with recent findings demonstrating how virtue shapes effective group living.

scholarly journals Poor ability to resist tempting calorie rich food is linked to altered balance between neural systems involved in urge and self-control

2014 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Qinghua He ◽  
Lin Xiao ◽  
Gui Xue ◽  
Savio Wong ◽  
Susan L Ames ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Self Control ◽  
Neural Systems ◽  
Rich Food

scholarly journals Increased Capacity to Delay Reward in Anorexia Nervosa

2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 773-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanna E. Steinglass ◽  
Bernd Figner ◽  
Staci Berkowitz ◽  
H. Blair Simpson ◽  
Elke U. Weber ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Anorexia Nervosa ◽  
Food Restriction ◽  
Intertemporal Choice ◽  
Temporal Discounting ◽  
Choice Task ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Neuropsychological Characteristics ◽  
Secondary Analyses

AbstractIndividuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) are often characterized as possessing excessive self-control and are unusual in their ability to reduce or avoid the consumption of palatable foods. This behavior promotes potentially life-threatening weight loss and suggests disturbances in reward processing. We studied whether individuals with AN showed evidence of increased self-control by examining the tendency to delay receipt of a monetary, non-food related, reward. Underweight AN (n = 36) and healthy controls (HC, n = 28) completed a monetary intertemporal choice task measuring delay discounting factor. Individuals with AN reduced the value of a monetary reward over time significantly less than HC (F[1,61] = 5.03; p = 0.029). Secondary analyses indicated that the restricting subtype of AN, in particular, showed significantly less discounting than HC (F[1,46] = 8.3; p = 0.006). These findings indicate that some individuals with AN show less temporal discounting than HC, suggestive of enhanced self-control that is not limited to food consumption. This is in contrast to other psychiatric disorders, for example, substance abuse, which are characterized by greater discounting. Though preliminary, these findings suggest that excessive self-control may contribute to pathological processes and individuals with AN may have neuropsychological characteristics that enhance their ability to delay reward and thereby may help to maintain persistent food restriction. (JINS, 2012, 18, 1–8)

scholarly journals Intertemporal choice reflects value comparison rather than self-control: insights from confidence judgments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Bulley ◽  
Karolina Maria Lempert ◽  
Colin Conwell ◽  
Muireann Irish
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Intertemporal Choice ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Confidence Judgments ◽  
Adult Participants ◽  
Subjective Value ◽  
The Right ◽  
Intertemporal Decisions ◽  
Intertemporal Choices

Intertemporal decision-making has long been assumed to measure self-control, with prominent theories treating choices of smaller, sooner rewards as failed attempts to override immediate temptation. If this view is correct, people should be more confident in their intertemporal decisions when they “successfully” delay gratification than when they do not. In two pre- registered experiments with built-in replication, adult participants (n=117) made monetary intertemporal choices and rated their confidence in having made the right decisions. Contrary to assumptions of the self-control account, confidence was not higher when participants chose delayed rewards. Rather, participants were more confident in their decisions when possible rewards were further apart in time-discounted subjective value, closer to the present, and larger in magnitude. Demonstrating metacognitive insight, participants were more confident in decisions that better aligned with their independent valuation of possible rewards. Decisions made with less confidence were more prone to changes-of-mind and more susceptible to a patience-enhancing manipulation. Together, our results establish that confidence in intertemporal choice tracks uncertainty in estimating and comparing the value of possible rewards – just as it does in decisions unrelated to self-control. Our findings challenge self- control views and instead cast intertemporal choice as a form of value-based decision-making about future possibilities.

scholarly journals Fact retrieval or compacted procedures in arithmetic – a neurophysiological investigation of two hypotheses

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland H. Grabner ◽  
Clemens Brunner ◽  
Valerie Lorenz ◽  
Stephan E. Vogel ◽  
Bert De Smedt
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
High Sensitivity ◽  
List Type ◽  
Single Digit ◽  
Frequency Bands ◽  
Eeg Data ◽  
Neurophysiological Test ◽  
Problem Solving Strategies ◽  
Fact Retrieval

ABSTRACTThere is broad consensus that adults solve single-digit multiplication problems almost exclusively by fact retrieval (i.e., retrieval of the solution from an arithmetic fact network). In contrast, there has been a long-standing debate on the cognitive processes involved in solving single-digit addition problems. This debate has evolved around two theoretical accounts. The fact-retrieval account postulates that these are solved through fact retrieval, just like multiplications, whereas the compacted-procedure account proposes that solving very small additions (i.e., problems with operands between 1 and 4) involves highly automatized and unconscious compacted procedures. In the present electroencephalography (EEG) study, we put these two accounts to the test by comparing neurophysiological correlates of solving very small additions and multiplications. A sample of 40 adults worked on an arithmetic production task involving all (non-tie) single-digit additions and multiplications. Afterwards, participants completed trial-by-trial strategy self-reports. In our EEG analyses, we focused on induced activity (event-related synchronization/desynchronization, ERS/ERD) in three frequency bands (theta, lower alpha, upper alpha). Across all frequency bands, we found higher evidential strength for similar rather than different neurophysiological processes accompanying the solution of very small addition and multiplication problems. This was also true when n + 1 and n × 1 problems were excluded from the analyses. In two additional analyses, we showed that ERS/ERD can differentiate between self-reported problem-solving strategies (retrieval vs. procedure) and even between n + 1 and n + m problems in very small additions, demonstrating its high sensitivity to cognitive processes in arithmetic. The present findings clearly support the fact-retrieval account, suggesting that both very small additions and multiplications are solved through fact retrieval.HIGHLIGHTSNeurophysiological test of fact retrieval and compacted procedures accountInduced EEG data are sensitive to cognitive processes in arithmetic problem solvingBoth very small additions and multiplications are solved through fact retrieval

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