Deliberation is a controllable process governed by desirability and cognitive effort

Humans spend a lifetime making decisions based on incoming sensory information and goals. Prominent theories of perceptual decision-making have described the components of the deliberation process, yet they lack a unifying principle that governs what the nervous system considers to tune deliberation. Desirability (reward) and effort (energy) are major determinants in governing a broad range of human and animal behavior, such as foraging, walking, and decisions. Here, we develop a theory where desirability and cognitive effort tune the control gains that govern deliberation. Several hallmark features of decision behavior simply emerge from the model, with the deliberation process closely resembling low-dimensional neural dynamics. We also predict and provide a novel mechanistic explanation for "choking-under-pressure," where extremely large rewards lead to performance deficits. Our principled framework explains both behavioral and neural phenomena while providing a path to unify disparate fields.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Desirability and effort are fundamental objectives that drive human and animal behavior. Information processing accounts of decision-making do not consider biologically plausible objectives and thus fail to explain what tunes deliberation. Here, we propose a novel theory where deliberation is a controllable process governed by desirability and cognitive effort. This theoretical model captures classic decision phenomena while the emergent process bears a striking resemblance to complex neural dynamics.