Damage to various regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) impairs decision making involving evaluations about risks and rewards. However, the specific contributions that different PFC subregions make to risk-based decision making are unclear. We investigated the effects of reversible inactivation of 4 subregions of the rat PFC (prelimbic medial PFC, orbitofrontal cortex [OFC], anterior cingulate...

When faced with risky decisions, people tend to be risk averse for gains and risk seeking for losses (the reflection effect). Studies examining this risk-sensitive decision making, however, typically ask people directly what they would do in hypothetical choice scenarios. A recent flurry of studies has shown that when these risky decisions include rare outcomes, people make different choices fo...

Individual differences in cognitive abilities and skills can predict normatively superior and logically consistent judgments and decisions. The current experiment investigates the processes that mediate individual differences in risky choices. We assessed working memory span, numeracy, and cognitive impulsivity and conducted a protocol analysis to trace variations in conscious deliberative proc...

Recent work has suggested an association between the orbitofrontal cortex in humans and practical decision making. The aim of this study was to investigate the profile of cognitive deficits, with particular emphasis on decision-making processes, following damage to different sectors of the human prefrontal cortex. Patients with discrete orbitofrontal (OBF) lesions, dorsolateral (DL) lesions, do...

In risky decision-making, expected utility (EU) theory is widely used to examine people's risk attitude and choice behavior. However, it is unknown how risk attitude relates to attention and information search. In this paper, we explore the relationship between risk attitude (as measured by a variant of EU) and eye movement patterns (which serve as a proxy for attention and information search)....

It is difficult to motivate advisors to acquire information through standard performancecontracts when for instance outcomes are uncertain and/or only observed in the distant future. Decision-makers may however exploit advisors’ desire to influence the outcome. To investigate this, I build a model in which a decision-maker and an advisor both intrinsically care about the decision’s consequences...

Many important economic decisions involve financial risk, and there is substantial evidence that women tend to be more risk averse than men. We explore a potential biological basis of the variation in risk-taking within and between men and women using an emerging measure of prenatal androgrens, the ratio between the length of the second and fourth digits (2D:4D). A smaller 2D:4D ratio has been ...

The purpose of this research is to seek the best (highest performing) risk profiles of agents who successively choose among risky prospects. An agent’s risk profile is his attitude to perceived risk, which can vary from risk preferring to risk neutral (an expected-value decision maker) to risk averse, or even a dual-risk attitude. We use the Genetic Algorithm to search in the complex stochastic...

A novel survey dataset on computed tomography (CT) machine acquisition is used to explore which theories best answer two questions from the decision making literature. First, what determines how much uncertainty a firm has when investing in updated technology? Second, what determines the value of the acquisition? In answering these questions, two theoretical comparisons are conducted. In the fi...