TY - JOUR
T1 - Context-sensitive valuation and learning
AU - Hunter, Lindsay E.
AU - Daw, Nathaniel D.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by NIMH grant MH121093 , part of the CRCNS program.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - A variety of behavioral and neural phenomena suggest that organisms evaluate outcomes not on an absolute utility scale, but relative to some dynamic and context-sensitive reference or scale. Sometimes, as in foraging tasks, this results in sensible choices; in other situations, like choosing between options learned in different contexts, irrational choices can result. We argue that what unites and demystifies these various phenomena is that the brain's goal is not assessing utility as an end in itself, but rather comparing different options to choose the better one. In the presence of uncertainty, noise, or costly computation, adjusting options to the context can produce more accurate choices.
AB - A variety of behavioral and neural phenomena suggest that organisms evaluate outcomes not on an absolute utility scale, but relative to some dynamic and context-sensitive reference or scale. Sometimes, as in foraging tasks, this results in sensible choices; in other situations, like choosing between options learned in different contexts, irrational choices can result. We argue that what unites and demystifies these various phenomena is that the brain's goal is not assessing utility as an end in itself, but rather comparing different options to choose the better one. In the presence of uncertainty, noise, or costly computation, adjusting options to the context can produce more accurate choices.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.05.001
DO - 10.1016/j.cobeha.2021.05.001
M3 - Review article
C2 - 34222566
AN - SCOPUS:85107693725
SN - 2352-1546
VL - 41
SP - 122
EP - 127
JO - Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
JF - Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences
ER -