Aaron Bornstein
Department of Cognitive Sciences
University of California, Irvine
Humans and animals are often maligned as being bad (“suboptimal”) at making decisions, especially decisions under uncertainty. But is this allegation justified? In this talk, I first examine commonly used measures of individual differences in decision-making behavior, drawn from behavioral economics. I present results suggesting that these measures are fundamentally affected by irrelevant contextual features. I then examine a different set of measurements from the domain of patch foraging. Foraging requires individuals to compare a local option to the distribution of alternatives across the environment. Foragers, across a range of species, have been observed to systematically deviate from exogenous notions of optimality by “overharvesting”—staying too long in a patch. I introduce a computational model that explains the appearance of overharvesting as a by-product of two mechanisms: 1) statistically rational learning about the distribution of alternatives and 2) decisions that adapt to the uncertainty of these distributions – looking ahead farther when more sure about the options available. I test this model using a variant of a serial stay-leave task and find that human foragers’ behavior is consistent with both mechanisms. Our findings suggest that overharvesting, rather than reflecting a deviation from optimal decision-making, is instead a consequence of optimal learning and adaptation. I then present new work following up on these findings to understand how individuals adapt to their environments, experiences, and changing neural circuitry across the lifespan.
View a recording of this session here.