Decision making in the real world requires that individuals make efficient use of limited time. The need for individuals to preserve time while also trying to make good decisions can offer suggestive explanations for commonly observed errors in decision making. Additionally, consideration of the variability in the strategies that individuals employ to preserve resources while deciding can potentially offer explanations for aberrant decisions and valuations commonly observed in psychiatric conditions. I will present two lines of work which examine separate consequences of the need to manage resources while deciding. First, I will present neuroimaging data demonstrating that commonly observed heuristics in risky decision making can reflect different strategies for reducing the number of outcomes considered during deliberation. Next, I will present behavioral data examining the strategies that individuals employ to manage trade-offs around how to balance expending time, with opportunities to obtain rewards. For both lines of work, I will present suggestive evidence that understanding individual differences in the ways that individuals cope with the resource demands of making good decisions can suggest mechanisms of a range of mental health disorders.

 

Evan Russek
Postdoctoral Researcher
Computational Cognitive Science Lab
Princeton University

 

 

 

 

As the recording shows small slides, the slides are also provided here as pdf: slides

Evan Russek – Characterizing resource management strategies in decision making and mental health