Citation

Warren PA, Graf EW, Champion RA, Maloney LT. Proc. Biol. Sci. 2012; 279(1736): 2171-2179.

Affiliation

School of Psychological Sciences, University of Manchester, , Manchester M13 9PL, UK, School of Psychology, University of Southampton, , Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK, Department of Psychology, Center for Neural Science, New York University, , New York, NY 10003, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2012, Royal Society of London)

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2011.2527

PMID

22298845

PMCID

PMC3321716

Abstract

Humans commonly face choices between multiple options with uncertain outcomes. Such situations occur in many contexts, from purely financial decisions (which shares should I buy?) to perceptuo-motor decisions between different actions (where should I aim my shot at goal?). Regardless of context, successful decision-making requires that the uncertainty at the heart of the decision-making problem is taken into account. Here, we ask whether humans can recover an estimate of exogenous uncertainty and then use it to make good decisions. Observers viewed a small dot that moved erratically until it disappeared behind an occluder. We varied the size of the occluder and the unpredictability of the dot's path. The observer attempted to capture the dot as it emerged from behind the occluded region by setting the location and extent of a 'catcher' along the edge of the occluder. The reward for successfully catching the dot was reduced as the size of the catcher increased. We compared human performance with that of an agent maximizing expected gain and found that observers consistently selected catcher size close to this theoretical solution. These results suggest that humans are finely tuned to exogenous uncertainty information and can exploit it to guide action.

Language: en