2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

13-16 September 2019    Berlin, Germany

Technical Program

Paper Detail

Paper: PS-2A.48
Session: Poster Session 2A
Location: H Lichthof
Session Time: Sunday, September 15, 17:15 - 20:15
Presentation Time:Sunday, September 15, 17:15 - 20:15
Presentation: Poster
Publication: 2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 13-16 September 2019, Berlin, Germany
Paper Title: Overriding First Impressions: Evidence for a Reference-Dependent and Attentionally-Weighted Multi-Stage Process of Value-Based Decision-Making
Manuscript:  Click here to view manuscript
License: Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2019.1339-0
Authors: Romy Frömer, Amitai Shenhav, Brown University, United States
Abstract: While previous work has shown that value and attention jointly modulate value-based decisions (Krajbich, Armel, & Rangel, 2010), it is still debated whether attention amplifies value effects (Smith & Krajbich, 2019) or provides a boost to the attended item independent of its value (Cavanagh, Wiecki, Kochar, & Frank, 2014). Here, we independently vary value and visual attention by alternating options on the screen while manipulating presentation duration. Across two studies, we show that the value of the first attended item biases choices in a time-varying manner. We further find that effects of relative presentation duration are value-dependent and specific to the subsequently presented item, which has a stronger impact on choice as relative attention to it increases, overwriting the first item bias. We show that these effects can be captured by a modified attentionally-weighted multi-stage drift diffusion model (aDDM; Krajbich et al., 2010) processing the first item in a reference-dependent manner (relative to the average expected value of previous choice sets). Our results demonstrate that decisions are disproportionally shaped by the reference-dependent value of the first seen item, and that when tested independently, attention amplifies value rather than boosting attended options.