Economic decision-making compared with an equivalent motor task.

Full Abstract

There is considerable evidence that human economic decision-making deviates from the predictions of expected utility theory (EUT) and that human performance conforms to EUT in many perceptual and motor decision tasks. It is possible that these results reflect a real difference in decision-making in the 2 domains but it is also possible that the observed discrepancy simply reflects typical differences in experimental design. We developed a motor task that is mathematically equivalent to choosing between lotteries and used it to compare how the same subject chose between classical economic lotteries and the same lotteries presented in equivalent motor form. In experiment 1, we found that subjects are more risk seeking in deciding between motor lotteries. In experiment 2, we used cumulative prospect theory to model choice and separately estimated the probability weighting functions and the value functions for each subject carrying out each task. We found no patterned differences in how subjects represented outcome value in the motor and the classical tasks. However, the probability weighting functions for motor and classical tasks were markedly and significantly different. Those for the classical task showed a typical tendency to overweight small probabilities and underweight large probabilities, and those for the motor task showed the opposite pattern of probability distortion. This outcome also accounts for the increased risk-seeking observed in the motor tasks of experiment 1. We conclude that the same subject distorts probability, but not value, differently in making identical decisions in motor and classical form.

Author information

Author/s: Wu, Shih-Wei (SW); Delgado, Mauricio R (MR); Maloney, Laurence T (LT);

Affiliation: Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA. shihwei(-atsign-)caltech.edu

Grants: EY08266 (Agency:NEI NIH HHS)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2009-Apr; vol 106 (issue 15) : pp 6088-93

Dates: Created 2009/04/16; Completed 2009/05/12; Revised 2009/10/15;

PMID: 19332799, status: MEDLINE (last retrieved date: 10/16/2009)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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