Surprising sounds influence risky decision making

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Decision Science
• Auditory Perception

Background:

• Adaptive behavior relies on navigating environmental uncertainty.
• Incidental sensory events can either distract or lead to rigid responses.
• The impact of task-irrelevant sensory prediction errors on decision-making is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how task-irrelevant sensory prediction errors influence risky decision-making in humans.
• To determine if auditory prediction errors increase risk-taking or choice perseveration.

Main Methods:

• Seven experiments with 1600 human participants were conducted.
• Rare auditory sequences were presented before option presentation.
• Computational modeling and control experiments were used to analyze effects.

Main Results:

• Rare auditory sequences significantly increased risk-taking and decreased choice perseveration.
• Risk-taking and perseveration effects were dissociable based on auditory statistics.
• Effects were explained by value-independent risky bias and perseveration parameters, linked to dopamine.

Conclusions:

• Incidental auditory prediction errors can systematically bias human decision-making towards risk-taking and reduced perseveration.
• These findings suggest that even irrelevant sounds can influence everyday choices.
• The observed effects are not due to increased decision noise or erroneous beliefs.