How prior preferences determine decision-making frames and biases in the human brain

Abstract
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Abstract

Understanding how option values are compared when making a choice is a key objective for decision neuroscience. In natural situations, agents may have a priori on their preferences that create default policies and shape the neural comparison process. We asked participants to make choices between items belonging to different categories (e.g., jazz vs. rock music). Behavioral data confirmed that items taken from the preferred category were chosen more often and more rapidly, which qualified them as default options. FMRI data showed that baseline activity in classical brain valuation regions, such as the ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (vmPFC), reflected the strength of prior preferences. In addition, evoked activity in the same regions scaled with the default option value, irrespective of the eventual choice. We therefore suggest that in the brain valuation system, choices are framed as comparisons between default and alternative options, which might save some resource but induce a decision bias.

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Alizée Lopez-Persem

Motivation, Brain and Behavior lab, Paris, France

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-7566-5715
Philippe Domenech

Inserm U1127, CNRS U 7225, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris, France

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Mathias Pessiglione

Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière, Paris, France

For correspondence
mathias.pessiglione@gmail.com

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

European Research Council (ERC-BioMotiv)

Mathias Pessiglione

Agence Nationale de la Recherche

Mathias Pessiglione

Direction Générale de l'Armement

Alizée Lopez-Persem

LabEx BioPsy

Alizée Lopez-Persem

LabEx Biopsy (ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02)

Philippe Domenech

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: The study was approved by the Pitie-Salpetriere Hospital ethics committee (protocole C12-69). All subjects were recruited via e-mail within an academic database and gave informed consent to participate and consent to publish before participation in the study.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.