Neuropsychology of Risk Perception and Risk Taking

经济学家、心理学家和神经学家提出了一系列关于人们在面对风险选项时的选择的模型，这些模型描述了应该如何做出这样的决定(规范性的)，或者这样的决定看起来是如何做出的(描述性的)。然而，做出这种选择的实际过程仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。最近，神经科学研究人员使用功能磁共振成像(FMRI)开始检查人脑如何编码许多风险决策模型使用的一些变量的信息。这些技术已经被用来识别可能与选择的物质和情感后果相关的神经信号，从而可以为风险决策的相互竞争的描述性理论之间的争议提供依据。我们将使用神经科学证据在研究人员和政策制定者相当感兴趣的两个领域测试不同的理论或行为模式：(A)风险感知的性质及其在风险决策中的作用，以及(B)当人们基于对选择选项结果的重复个人经验时做出风险决定的方式的差异，而不是基于关于选择选项的统计汇总信息，通常是由其他人提供的。我们对风险感知和风险选择的研究将把已知参与风险判断和风险决策的区域的大脑激活水平与选择集特征以及观察到的判断和选择联系起来。这将使我们能够在相互竞争的风险选择模型之间进行测试，并调查个体在风险感知和风险选择方面差异的神经决定因素。未来的研究将采用这种洞察力，并将其应用于临床人群，特别是精神分裂症患者和年轻的药物滥用者做出的描述中的风险决定和临床人群中个人经验的不确定决定。这将有助于建立正常成年人风险决策的神经过程模型，为了解临床和其他高危人群决策受损的神经来源奠定基础。

Economists, psychologists and neuroscientists have proposed a wide range of models of people's choices when confronted with risky options that describe how such decisions should be made (normative) or how such decisions appear to be made (descriptive). However, the actual processes by which such choices are made remain an open question. Recently, neuroscience researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have begun to examine how the human brain encodes information about some of the variables used by many models of risky decision making. These techniques have been used to identify neural signals that may be related to both the material and emotional consequences of choices, and can thus inform controversies between competing descriptive theories of risky decision making.We will use neuroscience evidence to test between different theories or models of behavior in two areas of considerable interest to researchers and policy makers: (a) the nature of risk perception and its role in risky decision making, and (b) differences in the way people make risky decisions when basing them on repeated personal experience with the outcomes of choice options vs. basing them on statistical summary information about the choice options, typically provided by others. Our investigation of risk perception and risky choice will relate levels of brain activation in areas known to be involved in risk judgments and risky decisions to choice set characteristics and to observed judgments and choices. This will enable us to test between competing models of risky choice and to investigate the neural determinants of individual differences in risk perception and risky choice. Future studies will take such insights and apply them to risky decisions from description and uncertain decisions from personal experience made in clinical populations, in particular by schizophrenics and young substance abusers. The will help to build a neural process model of risky decision-making in normal adults, which can serve as a foundation for understanding the neural sources of impaired decision making in clinical and other at-risk populations.