A B S T R A C TReal-life decision-making often involves combining multiple probabilistic sources of information under finite time and cognitive resources. To mitigate these pressures, people "satisfice", foregoing a full evaluation of all available evidence to focus on a subset of cues that allow for fast and "good-enough" decisions. Although this form of decision-making likely mediates many of our everyday choices, very little is known about the way in which the neural encoding of cue information changes when we satisfice under time pressure. Here, we combined human functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with a probabilistic classification task to characterize neural substrates of multi-cue decision-making under low (1500 ms) and high (500 ms) time pressure. Using variational Bayesian inference, we analyzed participants' choices to track and quantify cue usage under each experimental condition, which was then applied to model the fMRI data. Under low time pressure, participants performed nearoptimally, appropriately integrating all available cues to guide choices. Both cortical (prefrontal and parietal cortex) and subcortical (hippocampal and striatal) regions encoded individual cue weights, and activity linearly tracked trial-by-trial variations in the amount of evidence and decision uncertainty. Under increased time pressure, participants adaptively shifted to using a satisficing strategy by discounting the least informative cue in their decision process. This strategic change in decision-making was associated with an increased involvement of the dopaminergic midbrain, striatum, thalamus, and cerebellum in representing and integrating cue values. We conclude that satisficing the probabilistic inference process under time pressure leads to a cortical-to-subcortical shift in the neural drivers of decisions.

Critical real-life choices involve making complex decisions in the presence of potential threats, for instance, in medical or military emergencies. Effective choices require a decision maker to efficiently weigh and combine multiple sources of uncertain information. As anxiety can disrupt cognitive performance, complex decision-making under uncertainty may be particularly compromised by potential threat. One way people overcome such cognitive limitations is to “satisfice” by selectively evaluating a subset of available information to quickly identify a goodenough, feasible solution. How satisficing decision-making plays out under anxiety, however, remains elusive. Here, we examined how healthy participants solve a multi-cue probabilistic classification task under anticipatory anxiety induced via a threat-of-shock manipulation. Specifically, we investigated individual differences in information (cue) usage based on participants’ physiological responsiveness to threat, quantified by changes in skin conductance levels. In the absence of threat, all participants performed near-optimally, appropriately weighing and integrating all available cue information to guide their choices. Under threat-of-shock, however, participants who displayed high levels of anxiety employed a satisficing heuristic by ignoring the least important cue from their decision process, a strategy that uses less cognitive resources without sacrificing much accuracy. Moreover, anticipatory anxiety uncoupled the actual cue usage from explicit task knowledge. Taken together, these results suggest that, to cope with high levels of anticipatory anxiety, people satisfice by prioritizing high-value information to achieve fast and good-enough solutions.

Decisions often involve the consideration of multiple cues, each of which may inform selection on the basis of learned probabilities. Our ability to use probabilistic inference for decisions is bounded by uncertainty and constraints such as time pressure. Previous work showed that when humans choose between visual objects in a multiple-cue, probabilistic task, they cope with time pressure by discounting the least informative cues, an example of satisficing or “good enough” decision-making. We tested two rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) on a similar task to assess their capacity for probabilistic inference and satisficing in comparison with humans. In each trial, a monkey viewed two compound stimuli consisting of four cue dimensions. Each dimension (e.g., color) had two possible states (e.g., red or blue) with different probabilistic weights. Selecting the stimulus with highest total weight yielded higher odds of receiving reward. Both monkeys learned the assigned weights at high accuracy. Under time pressure, both monkeys were less accurate as a result of decreased use of cue information. One monkey adopted the same satisficing strategy used by humans, ignoring the least informative cue dimension. Both monkeys, however, exhibited a strategy not reported for humans, a “group-the-best” strategy in which the top two cues were used similarly despite their different assigned weights. The results validate macaques as an animal model of probabilistic decision-making, establishing their capacity to discriminate between objects using at least four visual dimensions simultaneously. The time pressure data suggest caution, however, in using macaques as models of human satisficing.