An Interdisciplinary Study of the Role of the Consciousness on Decision-making

我们经常在不知道为什么的情况下做出选择，或者在某些情况下甚至根本没有意识到我们做出了选择。此外，我们有时发现自己做出了事后看来不应该做出的选择。例如，我们可能会发现自己嘴里含着一块饼干，尽管我们下定决心要节食；或者我们可能会发现自己强烈地喜欢或不喜欢一个人，而不知道为什么。这些例子令人费解，因为我们倾向于认为所有的选择都是经过深思熟虑的，都是基于我们完全了解的信息。显然，事实并非如此。事实上，它可能是个例外。然而，在我们的大脑中，我们的选择，以及其中的成分，总会有一些印记。在这个研究项目中，首席研究员将进行一系列的研究，系统地探索当我们做出各种各样的决定时，我们的大脑会发生什么，有些是有意识的，有些是无意识的，使用认知神经科学的最先进的工具：高分辨率磁共振成像，以及来自神经外科病人的罕见的大脑电记录。这些研究将对我们如何做出决定的不同组成部分进行前所未有的剖析，并为意识在人类行为中的作用提供新的见解。这些研究将有助于回答神经科学、心理学和经济学中一些重要的突出问题。我们做决定的速度有多快？有意识地做出的选择比没有意识时做出的选择慢吗？动物会做出有意识的选择吗？沉迷于毒品、购物或赌博的人做出的选择有多有意识？我们能有意识地克服我们没有意识到的强烈偏好吗？回答这些问题将使我们了解决策背后的机制。它还能让我们更深入地了解意识的本质以及意识对人类行为的影响。最后，从我们的研究中获得的见解将为计算机、机器人和分布式系统的工程智能决策奠定基础。

We often make choices without knowing why or in some cases even without being aware that we made a choice at all. Moreover, we sometimes find ourselves having made choices that, with hindsight, we do not believe we should have made. For example, we might find ourselves with a cookie in our mouth despite firm intentions to diet; or we might find ourselves strongly liking or disliking a person without any knowledge of why.These examples are puzzling because we tend to think that all choices are deliberate and based on information of which we are fully aware. Clearly, this is not the case. In fact, it may be the exception. Yet there must always be some signature of our choice, and of the ingredients that went into it, in our brains. In this research project, the Principal Investigators will conduct a series of studies that systematically explore what happens our brains when we make various kinds of decisions, some conscious, some non-conscious, using state-of-the-art tools from cognitive neuroscience: high resolution magnetic resonance imaging, and rare electrical recordings of the brain from neurosurgical patients. These studies will result in an unprecedented dissection of the different components that contribute to how we make decisions and provide novel insights into the role of consciousness in human behavior. The studies will help to answer some important outstanding questions in neuroscience, psychology, and economics. How quickly do we make decisions? Are consciously made choices slower than ones made in the absence of consciousness? Do animals make conscious choices? How conscious are the choices made by people who are addicted to drugs, to shopping, or to gambling? Can we consciously override strong preferences of which we are not aware? Answering these questions will allow us to understand the mechanisms behind decision-making. It will also give us a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness and what it contributes to human behavior. Finally, the insights obtained from our studies will lay the groundwork for engineering intelligent decision-making in computers, robots, and distributed systems.