PubMed Health⌕ Search

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Choice Behavior”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed2005

Regret and its avoidance: a neuroimaging study of choice behavior.

Human decisions can be shaped by predictions of emotions that ensue after choosing advantageously or disadvantageously. Indeed, anticipating regret is a powerful predictor of future choices. We measured brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects selected between two gambles wherein regret was induced by providing information about the outcome of the unchosen gamble. Increasing regret enhanced activity in the medial orbitofrontal region, the anterior cingulate cortex and the hippocampus. Notably, across the experiment, subjects became increasingly regret-aversive, a cumulative effect reflected in enhanced activity within medial orbitofrontal cortex and amygdala. This pattern of activity reoccurred just before making a choice, suggesting that the same neural circuitry mediates direct experience of regret and its anticipation. These results demonstrate that medial orbitofrontal cortex modulates the gain of adaptive emotions in a manner that may provide a substrate for the influence of high-level emotions on decision making.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

[Participation of the nucleus accumbens in acquisition of spatial choice behavior in rats performing in a radial plus maze].

The role of medial shell of the nucleus accumbens in acquisition of spatial behavior was studied in rats performing choice task in radial maze with asymmetrical water reinforcement. It has been found that the nucleus accumbens lesioned rats failed in finding larger rewards but preserve their reward-seeking behavior guided by visual discriminative stimuli. The results obtained are in good agreement with suggestion that the nucleus accumbens is a site of convergence of spatial information (from hippocampus) with reward information (from amygdala and VTA), providing bridge for effective limbic-motor interface underlying motivated goal-directed behavior in animals.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Animal choice behavior and the evolution of cognitive architecture.

Animals process sensory information according to specific computational rules and, subsequently, form representations of their environments that form the basis for decisions and choices. The specific computational rules used by organisms will often be evolutionarily adaptive by generating higher probabilities of survival, reproduction, and resource acquisition. Experiments with enclosed colonies of bumblebees constrained to foraging on artificial flowers suggest that the bumblebee's cognitive architecture is designed to efficiently exploit floral resources from spatially structured environments given limits on memory and the neuronal processing of information. A non-linear relationship between the biomechanics of nectar extraction and rates of net energetic gain by individual bees may account for sensitivities to both the arithmetic mean and variance in reward distributions in flowers. Heuristic rules that lead to efficient resource exploitation may also lead to subjective misperception of likelihoods. Subjective probability formation may then be viewed as a problem in pattern recognition subject to specific sampling schemes and memory constraints.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Risky-choice behavior: a life-span analysis.

The purpose of the present study was to systemically test the hypothesis that older people adopt risk-avoiding strategies when faced with risky-choice situations. Ninety-six adults, representing four age cohorts, filled out a risk-taking questionnaire consisting of twelve situations demanding a choice between a safe and a risky option. One-half of the choices involved potential losses, the other half involved potential gains. The results indicated that older adults choose no more safe alternatives than do younger adults. Additionally, for all age cohorts, risk avoiding was more evident when choices were between risky and certain gains than when choices were between risky and certain losses. This pattern of responding suggests that older adults do not necessarily adopt a general strategy of avoiding risk options when a safe alternative is available. Instead, risk avoiding, for all age cohorts, appears to be influenced by the parameters of the choice situation.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Effects of naltrexone, and d-amphetamine, and their interaction on the stimulus control of choice behavior of rats.

The hypothesis that endogenous opioid peptides modulate attentional processes was tested. The effects of the opioid antagonist naltrexone (NALT), d-amphetamine (AMP), and their interaction were investigated in rats trained in a two-choice task in which the position of a short-duration light served as a cue for food-reinforced responses. NALT (0.25, 1.0, 5.0, and 10.0 mg/kg) produced no significant changes in performance (accuracy, choice latency, and food retrieval time). As predicted, AMP induced dose-dependent biphasic effects. Low doses of AMP (0.25 and 0.5 mg/kg) significantly enhanced accuracy, decreased choice latency, and lengthened food retrieval time; 1.25 mg/kg AMP disrupted accuracy, increased choice latency, and further lengthened food retrieval time. The combination of NALT (0.25, 1.0, and 10.0 mg/kg) and subthreshold doses of AMP (0.07 and 0.1 mg/kg) had no effect on performance except for an increase in food retrieval time with 10.0 mg/kg NALT, whereas the combination of NALT and moderate doses of AMP (0.5 and 1.0 mg/kg) disrupted accuracy, increased choice latencies, and lengthened food retrieval time. These results do not support the hypothesis that endogenous opioid peptides play a vital role in attentional processes or that opioid antagonists may be useful in the treatment of attentional deficit disorders.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Effects of random outcomes on choice behavior.

Decision-making researchers have shown that making optimal decisions is aided by the detection of information salient to the task. When the task involves random events, humans tend to perceive these events as contingent. In this study, outcomes were grouped together with choices to identify some of the conditions under which random events are correctly perceived. Of the two groups (ns=40) only one was provided information regarding the relationship between choice and outcome. This provision did not improve the detection of the relationship between random events any more than direct contact with the underlying contingencies. Findings are discussed in terms of experiential contact with and sensitivity to underlying contingency.

Adult↗
PubMed1978

Choice behavior in rhesus monkeys: cocaine versus food.

Rhesus monkeys were allowed to choose between intravenous injections of cocaine and food reinforcement for lever pressing. A choice trial was available every 15 minutes continuously for 8 days. The animals chose cocaine almost exclusively, which resulted in high cocaine intake, decreased food intake, weight loss, and marked behavioral toxicity. The study provides evidence of the reinforcing efficacy of cocaine.

Animals↗