Individual and circumstantial decision making
Elke van der Meer 1,2, Steffen Landgraf 3
Arriving at an individual decision is bound to the individual’s characteristics, circumstantial consequences of the decision, and the interaction of both [1]. In social contexts, there are decisions that either are in favor of the individual, the group, or both. Evolutionarily, decision making of living organisms arguably increases the likelihood that the individual contributes genetically to the next generation, implying that a tendency to serve individual goals might be evolutionarily inborn [2]. Individual strategies improve the effectiveness of decision making at the cost of time and resources [3-5]. We argue that individual advantages (e.g., high intelligence) [6] and disadvantages (e.g., vulnerability to psychopathology) [7] should contribute qualitatively and differentially to decision making under different environmental circumstances.
With this project, we would like to investigate how individual decision making is influenced by cognitive strategic mechanisms and circumstantial factors that support either individual- or group-favoring decisions. We hypothesize a double dissociation. In high-capacity individuals, cognitive factors are more predominant during quick/automatic and slow decision making. In low-capacity individuals, cognitive factors play a predominant role only during slow decision making.
We would like to deploy decision making tasks where strategy selection influences behavioral performance. Strategies are assessed by behavioral performance and recording eye movements in visually-presented tasks [8,9]. We also would like to investigate the neurofunctional correspondents of strategic decision making [10-12] in order to give a more sophisticated picture of the strategy-environment interaction.
We expect to be able to give recommendations, how time pressure interacts with individual traits and how individuals’ traits and environmental factors have to be taken into account when optimizing individual decision making.
References
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- Piaget, J. in [Six psychological studies by Jean Piaget] (ed D. Elkind) (Random House, 1967).
- Bornemann, B. et al. in Analogy 09 Conference.
- Araujo, C., Kowler, E. & Pavel, M. Eye movements during visual search: the costs of choosing the optimal path. Vision Res. 41, 3613-3625 (2001).
- Renninger, L. W., Verghese, P. & Coughlan, J. Where to look next? Eye movements reduce local uncertainty. J Vis 7, 6 (2007).
- Wartenburger, I., Heekeren, H. R., Preusse, F., Kramer, J. & van der Meer, E. Cerebral correlates of analogical processing and their modulation by training. Neuroimage 48, 291-302 (2009).
- Fakra, E., Salgado-Pineda, P., Delaveau, P., Hariri, A. R. & Blin, O. Neural bases of different cognitive strategies for facial affect processing in schizophrenia. Schizophr. Res. 100, 191-205 (2008).
- Vigneau, F., Caissie, A. F. & Bors, D. A. Eye-movement analysis demonstrates strategic influences on intelligence. Intelligence 34, 261-272 (2006).
- Bethell-Fox, C. E., Lohmann, D. F. & Snow, R. E. Adaptive Reasoning: Componential and Eye Movement Analysis of Geometric Analogy Performance. Intelligence 8, 205-238 (1984).
- Iaria, G., Petrides, M., Dagher, A., Pike, B. & Bohbot, V. D. Cognitive strategies dependent on the hippocampus and caudate nucleus in human navigation: variability and change with practice. J. Neurosci. 23, 5945-5952 (2003).
- Landgraf, S., Van der Meer, E. & Krueger, F. Resource allocation of cognitive processes for neuronal activity underlying mathematical cognition: A Multi-Method Study . International Journal of Mathematics Education (2010).
- Krueger, F., Landgraf, S., Van der Meer, E., Deshpande, G. & Hu, X. Effective connectivity of the multiplication network: A functional MRI and multivariate Granger causality mapping study. Hum. Brain Mapp. (2010).
1 Institute of Psychology, HU Berlin, Rudower Chaussee 18, 12489 Berlin, Germany
2 Berlin School of Mind and Brain, HU Berlin, Luisenstraße 56, 10117 Berlin, Germany
3 CILS Center for Integrative Life Sciences, HU Berlin, Luisenstraße 50, 10117 Berlin, Germany
