Decision making
Choice under uncertainty
Also searched as Choice under uncertainty.
In depth
A subdomain of executive function: weighing options when outcomes are uncertain. Assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task, which is failed by people with ventromedial prefrontal damage. The theory behind it — the somatic marker hypothesis — is contested in the literature.
What drives it
Learning from feedback increases it.
10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1307408 — while the control group increased their net score by selecting more advantageous decks across time, those with ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) damage continued in selecting from disadvantageous…. doi 10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1307408 · PMC11961917
Self-knowledge increases it.
Verbatim: 'The results showed that the experimental group improved its ability to decide, based on analytical thinking, about economic and healthcare-related everyday decision-making situations after they received the metacognitive strategy training.' (10.3390/jintelligence11090182, DOI 10.3390/jintelligence11090182). What was measured: Ability to make decisions about everyday economic and healthcare decision-making situations (pre-test, post-test, and 1-month follow-up). doi 10.3390/jintelligence11090182
Body awareness increases it.
Verbatim: 'People with greater sensitivity to interoceptive signals, as measured by, for example, tests of heart beat detection, perform better in laboratory studies of risky decision-making.' (PMC5027524). What was measured: In the quoted sentence: performance in laboratory studies of risky decision-making (heartbeat-detection sensitivity as the interoception measure). PMC5027524
What it drives
It increases Executive function.
The DSM-5 Neurocognitive Work Group agreed on six principal domains of cognitive function, each with subdomains. Executive function comprises planning, decision making, working memory, responding to feedback, inhibition and cognitive flexibility. Taxonomic edge, not a causal mechanism: this is a DSM-5 domain/subdomain relationship, not a pathway acting on another. Sachdev 2014, Nat Rev Neurol 10:634-642 — Classifying neurocognitive disorders: the DSM-5 approach. doi 10.1038/nrneurol.2014.181
Blends that modulate it
Each blend page names this pathway and carries the study behind its claim.
See it on the map
Open the causal map to follow this pathway upstream and downstream, arrow by arrow, each with its study.