Cognitive and Emotional Processes in Decision-Making

描述（由申请人提供）：本项目提出了一系列实验，这些实验将有助于新兴的神经经济学领域，该领域试图通过研究行为和潜在的神经基础来理解决策的组成过程。拟议的研究试图开始详细说明决策的机制，特别是构成决策过程的认知和情感成分。多年来，情绪对决策的影响在很大程度上被忽视了，但最近对情绪状态如何影响我们做出的决策类型的兴趣，为拓宽我们对这一最重要过程的认识提供了一个令人兴奋的机会。具体来说，本实验将使用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来测量参与经济决策的人的大脑功能。这一建议建立在作者先前研究人类决策背后的认知和情感过程的工作基础上。在之前的一项研究中，我们发现了可靠的、独立的神经活动模式，这些模式与被称为最后通牒游戏的经济决策任务中的情感和认知偏见相对应。在这款游戏中，参与者将与另一个人进行重要的社交互动，并根据情感或认知动机做出决定。在本提案中，将对先前研究中产生的假设进行系统测试，并为未来的研究提交产生试点数据。情绪和认知对决策的影响程度将通过使用最后通牒游戏和功能磁共振成像进行更深入的探索。这项研究还将对经常伴有决策能力差的神经和精神疾病的评估和治疗产生更广泛的影响。更全面地了解正常决策过程和结构可能极大地帮助表征患有这些疾病的患者的决策缺陷，并为未来的治疗提供途径。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This project proposes a series of experiments that will contribute to the burgeoning field of neuroeconomics, which attempts understand the component processes of decision-making by examining both behavior and the underlying neural substrates. The proposed studies seek to begin specifying the mechanisms of decisions, in particular the cognitive and emotional components that make up the decision-making process. Emotional influences on decision-making have been largely ignored for many years, but recent interest in how our emotional states can affect the type of decisions we make offer an exciting opportunity to broaden our knowledge of this most important process. Specifically, the proposed experiments will use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure brain function of people engaged in economic decision- making. This proposal builds on previous work by the author examining the cognitive and emotional processes underlying human decision-making. In a prior study, we found reliable, independent patterns of neural activity corresponding to emotional and cognitive biases in a well-studied task of economic decision- making known as the Ultimatum Game. In this game, participants are placed in a consequential social interaction with another person, and decisions are made which correspond to emotional or cognitive motives. In the present proposal, hypotheses generated in this previous study will be systematically tested, and pilot data generated for future research submissions. The degree to which emotion and cognition affect decisions will be explored in greater depth, via the use of variants of the Ultimatum Game and fMRI. This research will also have broader implications for assessment and treatment of, neurological and psychiatric disorders that are often accompanied by poor decision-making abilities. A fuller understanding of the processes and structures involved in normal decision-making may greatly help characterize the decision-making deficits of patients suffering from these disorders and suggest avenues for the future treatment.