Volz Kirsten G, Gigerenzer Gerd
Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience Tuebingen, Germany.
Front Neurosci. 2012 Jul 12;6:105. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2012.00105. eCollection 2012.
We deal with risk versus uncertainty, a distinction that is of fundamental importance for cognitive neuroscience yet largely neglected. In a world of risk ("small world"), all alternatives, consequences, and probabilities are known. In uncertain ("large") worlds, some of this information is unknown or unknowable. Most of cognitive neuroscience studies exclusively study the neural correlates for decisions under risk (e.g., lotteries), with the tacit implication that understanding these would lead to an understanding of decision making in general. First, we show that normative strategies for decisions under risk do not generalize to uncertain worlds, where simple heuristics are often the more accurate strategies. Second, we argue that the cognitive processes for making decisions in a world of risk are not the same as those for dealing with uncertainty. Because situations with known risks are the exception rather than the rule in human evolution, it is unlikely that our brains are adapted to them. We therefore suggest a paradigm shift toward studying decision processes in uncertain worlds and provide first examples.
我们探讨风险与不确定性，这一区别对认知神经科学至关重要，但在很大程度上被忽视了。在风险世界（“小世界”）中，所有的选择、后果和概率都是已知的。在不确定（“大世界”）的世界里，部分此类信息是未知或不可知的。大多数认知神经科学研究仅专注于风险决策（如彩票）的神经关联，默认理解这些就能全面理解决策过程。首先，我们表明风险决策的规范策略无法推广到不确定的世界，在那里简单启发式方法往往是更准确的策略。其次，我们认为在风险世界中做决策的认知过程与应对不确定性的认知过程不同。由于已知风险的情况在人类进化中是例外而非常规，我们的大脑不太可能适应它们。因此，我们建议研究范式转向不确定世界中的决策过程，并提供了首个示例。
