The In-flight Affective Brain: Decision Making under Uncertainty and Safety Implications in Aviation

Understanding the relation between motivation and pilot impulsive decision-making is extremely important in the context of aviation human factors. One way to operationalize motivation is by presenting participants with different reinforces, either primary (e.g. food rewards) or secondary (e.g. financial incentives, arguably playing a crucial role in in-flight decision-making). To establish the role that different reward systems play in decision-making, we tested the extent to which distinct brain regions are sensitive to the reinforcement content. Combining a neuroeconomics approach with a voxel-based lesion method, we found that distinct regions within orbito-frontal cortex (OFC) are differentially involved in impulsivity decisions based on the reinforcement type. In contrast, lesions in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) were not associated with such decisions. These results suggest a distinction between reward types at the neural level, and thus emphasize the importance of investigating how different reinforces can affect flight activity especially in pilot impulsive, risk-taking behavior.