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Explaining the description-experience gap in risky decision-making: learning and memory retention during experience
Nathaniel Haines1,2, Peter D Kvam3, Brandon M Turner4
1The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA. nathaniel.b.haines@gmail.com.
Cognitive, Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience
|June 8, 2023
Summary
Decision-making differs based on how information is acquired. Learning and memory models explain the description-experience gap in probability weighting, offering insights beyond traditional statistical models.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Decision-making under uncertainty relies on both described and experienced information.
- A significant discrepancy, the description-experience gap, shows differing risk preferences based on information source.
- Existing theories lack a formal mechanism explaining why probability weighting varies between description and experience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the underlying mechanisms of the description-experience gap in decision-making.
- To demonstrate how learning and memory models can explain variations in probability weighting.
- To provide a formal theoretical account for differences in decision-making based on information acquisition.
Main Methods:
- Simulation studies using neuroscientifically motivated learning and memory retention models.
- Application of traditional cumulative prospect theory to simulated experience-based learning.
- Hierarchical Bayesian modeling and Bayesian model comparison in a within-subject experiment.
Main Results:
- Learning through experience can lead to biased probability weighting estimates in traditional models.
- Proposed learning and memory models better explain participants' behavior than models solely adjusting valuation or probability weighting.
- These models account for differences in decisions based on description versus experience.
Conclusions:
- Substantive psychological process models offer deeper insights than heuristic statistical models for decision-making research.
- Understanding learning and memory mechanisms is crucial for explaining the description-experience gap.
- This work bridges cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to refine decision-making theories.
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