On Framing Effects in Decision Making: Linking Lateral versus Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex Activation to Choice Outcome Processing (original) (raw)

Understanding Decision Neuroscience - A multidisciplinary perspective and neural substrates.

The neuroscience of decision making is a rapidly evolving multidisciplinary research area that employs neuroscientific techniques to explain various parameters associated with decision making behavior. In this paper we emphasize the role of multiple disciplines such as psychology, economics, neuroscience, and computational approaches in understanding the phenomenon of decision making. Further, we present a theoretical approach that suggests understanding the building-blocks of decision making as bottom-up processes and integrate these with top-down modulatory factors. Relevant neurophysiological and neuroimaging findings that have used the building-block approach are reviewed. A unifying framework emphasizing multidisciplinary views would bring further insights into the active research area of decision making. Pointing to future directions for research, we focus on the role of computational approaches in such a unifying framework.

Anterior insula activity predicts the influence of positively framed messages on decision making

Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2010

The neural mechanisms underlying the influence of persuasive messages on decision making are largely unknown. We address this issue using event-related fMRI to investigate how informative messages alter risk appraisal during choice. Participants performed the Iowa Gambling Task while viewing a positively framed, negatively framed, or control message about the options. The right anterior insula correlated with improvement in choice behavior due to the positively framed but not the negatively framed message. With the positively framed message, there was increased activation proportional to message effectiveness when less-preferred options were chosen, consistent with a role in the prediction of adverse outcomes. In addition, the dorsomedial and the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex correlated with overall decision quality, regardless of message type. The dorsomedial region mediated the relationship between the right anterior insula and decision quality with the positively framed messages. These findings suggest a network of frontal brain regions that integrate informative messages into the evaluation of options during decision making. Supplemental procedures and results for this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

When the Choice Is Ours: Context and Agency Modulate the Neural Bases of Decision-Making

PLoS ONE, 2008

The option to choose between several courses of action is often associated with the feeling of being in control. Yet, in certain situations, one may prefer to decline such agency and instead leave the choice to others. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, we provide evidence that the neural processes involved in decision-making are modulated not only by who controls our choice options (agency), but also by whether we have a say in who is in control (context). The fMRI results are noteworthy in that they reveal specific contributions of the anterior frontomedian cortex (viz. BA 10) and the rostral cingulate zone (RCZ) in decision-making processes. The RCZ is engaged when conditions clearly present us with the most choice options. BA 10 is engaged in particular when the choice is completely ours, as well as when it is completely up to others to choose for us which in turn gives rise to an attribution of control to oneself or someone else, respectively. After all, it does not only matter whether we have any options to choose from, but also who decides on that. Citation: Forstmann BU, Wolfensteller U, Derrfuss J, Neumann J, Brass M, et al. (2008) When the Choice Is Ours: Context and Agency Modulate the Neural Bases of Decision-Making. PLoS ONE 3(4): e1899.