title: Neural Correlates of Decision-Making Under Ambiguity and Conflict.
abstract: HIGHLIGHTS We use a simple gambles design in an fMRI study to compare two conditions: ambiguity and conflict.Participants were more conflict averse than ambiguity averse.Ambiguity aversion did not correlate with conflict aversion.Activation in the medial prefrontal cortex correlated with ambiguity level and ambiguity aversion.Activation in the ventral striatum correlated with conflict level and conflict aversion. Studies of decision making under uncertainty generally focus on imprecise information about outcome probabilities ("ambiguity"). It is not clear, however, whether conflicting information about outcome probabilities affects decision making in the same manner as ambiguity does. Here we combine functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a simple gamble design to study this question. In this design the levels of ambiguity and conflict are parametrically varied, and ambiguity and conflict gambles are matched on expected value. Behaviorally, participants avoided conflict more than ambiguity, and attitudes toward ambiguity and conflict did not correlate across participants. Neurally, regional brain activation was differentially modulated by ambiguity level and aversion to ambiguity and by conflict level and aversion to conflict. Activation in the medial prefrontal cortex was correlated with the level of ambiguity and with ambiguity aversion, whereas activation in the ventral striatum was correlated with the level of conflict and with conflict aversion. These novel results indicate that decision makers process imprecise and conflicting information differently, a finding that has important implications for basic and clinical research.
authors.affiliation: Department of Agricultural Economics, University of Kentucky Lexington, KY, USA ; Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA ; Section of Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Pushkarskaya
authors.affiliation: Research School of Psychology, The Australian National University Canberra, ACT, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Smithson
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Kentucky Lexington, KY, USA.
authors.forename: Jane E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Joseph
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, University of Kentucky Lexington, KY, USA.
authors.forename: Christine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Corbly
authors.affiliation: Section of Comparative Medicine, Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA ; Department of Neurobiology, Yale School of Medicine New Haven, CT, USA.
authors.forename: Ifat
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Levy
keywords: ambiguity; conflict; decision making; fMRI; uncertainty