Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, Hanson Hall, Minneapolis, MN, United States of America.
Neurosurgery Department, Henri Mondor Hospital, Paris, France, and Brain & Spine Institute, AP-HP, DHU PePsy, CRICM, CNRS UMR, Créteil, France.
PLoS One. 2023 Oct 11;18(10):e0284127. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0284127. eCollection 2023.
We study the role of attention and working memory in choices where options are presented sequentially rather than simultaneously. We build a model where a costly attention effort is chosen, which can vary over time. Evidence is accumulated proportionally to this effort and the utility of the reward. Crucially, the evidence accumulated decays over time. Optimal attention allocation maximizes expected utility from final choice; the optimal solution takes the decay into account, so attention is preferentially devoted to later times; but convexity of the flow attention cost prevents it from being concentrated near the end. We test this model with a choice experiment where participants observe sequentially two options. In our data the option presented first is, everything else being equal, significantly less likely to be chosen. This recency effect has a natural explanation with appropriate parameter values in our model of leaky evidence accumulation, where the decline is stronger for the option observed first. Analysis of choice, response time and brain imaging data provide support for the model. Working memory plays an essential role. The recency bias is stronger for participants with weaker performance in working memory tasks. Also activity in parietal areas, coding the stored value in working, declines over time as predicted.
我们研究了在选项按顺序而不是同时呈现的情况下，注意力和工作记忆在选择中的作用。我们构建了一个模型，其中选择了一个代价高昂的注意力努力，它可以随时间变化。证据与这个努力和奖励的效用成比例地积累。至关重要的是，积累的证据会随时间衰减。最优注意力分配使最终选择的预期效用最大化；最优解考虑到了衰减，因此注意力优先分配给后期；但是，流动注意力成本的凸性防止其集中在接近末端的位置。我们通过一个选择实验来检验这个模型，参与者在这个实验中依次观察两个选项。在我们的数据中，首先呈现的选项，在其他条件相同的情况下，被选择的可能性显著降低。这种近因效应在我们的证据积累泄漏模型中具有自然的解释，其中对于先观察到的选项，下降幅度更大。对选择、反应时间和大脑成像数据的分析为该模型提供了支持。工作记忆起着至关重要的作用。对于工作记忆任务表现较弱的参与者，近因偏差更强。此外，正如预测的那样，工作记忆中存储价值的编码的顶叶区域的活动也随时间下降。
