Biased confabulation in risky choice

Mason, Alice; Madan, Christopher R.; Simonsen, Nick; Ludvig, Elliot Andrew

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105245

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Specifically, people are more likely to report the extremes of the experienced range as the first outcome to come to mind on recall tests, and they overestimate the frequency of extreme outcomes (best and worst) relative to equally often experienced nonextreme outcomes (Madan et al, 2014(Madan et al, , 2017. These effects in memory for reward are typically strongest and most consistent for the worst outcomes (i.e., relative losses; see Ludvig et al, 2015;Madan et al, 2019;Mason et al, 2022). For risky effort, it appears that people are also most likely to overweight the worst outcome, but in this case the worst outcome is the one requiring the most effort (highest number of clicks).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risky choice and memory for effort: Hard work stands out.

Mason¹,

Madan²,

Freas³

et al. 2023

Decision

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When deciding between different courses of action, both the potential outcomes and the costs of making a choice should be considered. These costs include the cognitive and physical effort of the different options. In many decision contexts, the outcome of the choice is guaranteed but the amount of effort required to achieve that outcome is unknown. Here, we studied choices between options that varied in the riskiness of the effort (number of responses) required. People made repeated choices between pairs of options that required them to click different numbers of sequentially presented response circles. Easy-effort options led to small numbers of response circles, whereas hard-effort options led to larger numbers of response circles. For both easy-and hard-effort options, fixed options led to a consistent effort, whereas risky options led to variable effort that, with a 50/50 chance, required either more effort or less effort than the fixed option. Participants who showed a preference for easier over harder options were more risk averse for decisions involving hard options than for decisions involving easy options. On subsequent memory tests, people most readily recalled the hardest outcome, and they overestimated its frequency of occurrence. Memory for the effort associated with each risky option strongly correlated with individual risky preferences for both easy-effort and hard-effort choices. These results suggest a relationship between memory biases and risky choice for effort similar to that found in risky choice for reward. With effort, the hardest work seems to particularly stand out.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risky choice and memory for effort: Hard work stands out.

Mason¹,

Madan²,

Freas³

et al. 2023

Decision

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“…Our study has shown that memory is reconstructive by creating new yet false associations. A recent study also found that people may not exhibit veridical recall but confabulate rewarded outcomes in experienced-based decision tasks (Mason et al, 2022). One might ask, why would our memory spontaneously construct false associations involving novel stimuli?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In experience-based decision making, people’s memories of past rewarding outcomes tend to be biased in a way that they normally overestimate the extreme gains and losses, and such memory bias is found to be correlated with risk preferences (Ludvig et al, 2014; Madan et al, 2014; Mason et al, 2022). This implies that what people remember about reward outcomes is not always what they have truly experienced, suggesting the potential role of distorted memory in decision making.…”

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confidence: 99%

Creating false rewarding memories guides novel decision making.

Wang,

Otgaar,

Howe

2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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When memories of past rewarding experiences are distorted, are relevant decision-making preferences impacted? Although recent research has demonstrated the important role of episodic memory in valuebased decision making, very few have examined the role of false memory in guiding novel decision making. The current study combined the pictorial Deese/Roediger-McDermott false memory paradigm with a reward learning task, where participants learned that items from some related lists gained reward and items from other lists led to no reward. Later, participants' memories and decision-making preferences were tested. With three experiments conducted in three countries, we successfully created false memories of rewarding experiences in which participants falsely remembered seeing a nonpresented lure picture bring them reward thereby confirming our constructive association hypothesis. Such false memories led participants to prefer the lure pictures and respond faster in a follow-up decision-making task, and the more false memories they formed, the higher preferences for the lure items they displayed (Experiment 2). Finally, results were replicated with or without a memory test before the decision-making task, showing that the impact of false memory on decision making was not cued by a memory test (Experiment 3). Our data suggest that the reconstructive nature of memory enables individuals to create new memory episodes to guide decision making in novel situations.

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“…The formation of beliefs and preferences is closely tied to these memory biases. As we gather experiences, we develop decision-making heuristics that guide our choices in various situations (Madan et al, 2021; Mason et al, 2022; Weber & Johnson, 2006). These heuristics are shaped not only by direct memories of past events but also by experiences that influence our beliefs and behaviors, even if we are not consciously able to recollect them (Addis & Tippett, 2004; Guzmán-Vélez et al, 2014; Kunst-Wilson & Zajonc, 1980; Madan, 2020, 2023; Palombo et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory Can Define Individual Beliefs and Identity—and Shape Society

Madan

2023

Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences

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Memory profoundly define individual beliefs and identity, shaping how societies make decisions. Five key memory phenomena include—first impressions and the primacy effect, risky decision-making and memory availability, information reliability and source memory, music preferences and the reminiscence bump, and long-term planning and episodic future thinking. Each phenomenon is explored for its impact on policy, revealing the profound ways that memory biases and processes shape critical societal choices, such as judicial decisions, hiring practices, financial planning, and pro-environmental behavior. Although memory's importance in daily life is widely recognized, its central role in shaping self-identity and influencing societal structures is often underestimated. Memory biases, evident in various aspects, from cultural exposures to decision-making heuristics, play a pivotal role in individual and collective behavior. These biases, often manifesting subtly, guide the formation of beliefs and preferences, with strong implications for policy making. Taken together, this work advocates for a multidisciplinary approach to bridge memory theory and policy practice.

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Biased confabulation in risky choice

Cited by 12 publications

References 70 publications

Risky choice and memory for effort: Hard work stands out.

Risky choice and memory for effort: Hard work stands out.

Creating false rewarding memories guides novel decision making.

Memory Can Define Individual Beliefs and Identity—and Shape Society

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