Decision Neuroscience

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Many people struggle on a daily basis to make choices that are consistent with their goals. They eat unhealthy foods despite knowing the health consequences, watch TV instead of going to the gym, and spend hours on social media instead of working. Difficulty making good decisions can become especially acute when stressed, distracted, or under a time crunch, leading people to suboptimal choices at precisely those moments where good decision making can be most crucial. Despite decades of research, we don't fully understand why. In order to understand the difficulties people face and to help them make more goal-consistent choices, the proposed research has three objectives. First, it seeks to develop better computational models for understanding how people navigate difficult trade-offs between competing priorities (e.g., enjoying a meal vs. losing weight); how and why decisions change when faced with physical or mental constraints like fatigue, stress, or time limits; and how those changes might lead to biases in choice. Second, it seeks to understand the brain-based, or neural, underpinnings of these computations, and to link differences in neural function to differences in computational processes. Finally, it seeks to link insights from computational and neural processes to real-world outcomes, both on the scale of day-to-day goal achievement and over time periods of weeks to months. In service of these objectives, the proposed research program will use innovative combinations of computational modeling and brain imaging, along with passive and active monitoring of daily goal achievement through mobile technology (i.e., a combination of Apple Watches, custom-built mobile phone apps). By linking computational predictions and neural data to both lab-based and real-world behaviour, this project will illuminate how people adapt their decision-making strategies to the kinds of complex, multi-factorial choices that they face on a daily basis. This ground-breaking research will yield novel insights into why people fail to achieve their goals, and allow us to develop new technologies and strategies to help them succeed.