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Decisions bias future choices by modifying hippocampal associative memories.

ABSTRACT: Decision-making is guided by memories of option values. However, retrieving items from memory renders them malleable. Here, we show that merely retrieving values from memory and making a choice between options is sufficient both to induce changes to stimulus-reward associations in the hippocampus and to bias future decision-making. After allowing participants to make repeated choices between reward-conditioned stimuli, in the absence of any outcome, we observe that participants prefer stimuli they have previously chosen, and neglect previously unchosen stimuli, over otherwise identical-valued options. Using functional brain imaging, we show that decisions induce changes to hippocampal representations of stimulus-outcome associations. These changes are correlated with future decision biases. Our results indicate that choice-induced preference changes are partially driven by choice-induced modification of memory representations and suggest that merely making a choice - even without experiencing any outcomes - induces associative plasticity.

SUBMITTER: Luettgau L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7335207 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Decisions bias future choices by modifying hippocampal associative memories.

Luettgau Lennart L Tempelmann Claus C Kaiser Luca Franziska LF Jocham Gerhard G

Nature communications 20200703 1

Decision-making is guided by memories of option values. However, retrieving items from memory renders them malleable. Here, we show that merely retrieving values from memory and making a choice between options is sufficient both to induce changes to stimulus-reward associations in the hippocampus and to bias future decision-making. After allowing participants to make repeated choices between reward-conditioned stimuli, in the absence of any outcome, we observe that participants prefer stimuli th ...[more]

PMID: 32620879

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Project description:Common wisdom and scientific evidence suggest that good decisions require conscious deliberation. But growing evidence demonstrates that not only conscious but also unconscious thoughts influence decision-making. Here, we hypothesize that both consciously and unconsciously acquired memories guide decisions. Our experiment measured the influence of subliminally and supraliminally presented information on delayed (30-40 min) decision-making. Participants were presented with subliminal pairs of faces and written occupations for unconscious encoding. Following a delay of 20 min, participants consciously (re-)encoded the same faces now presented supraliminally along with either the same written occupations, occupations congruous to the subliminally presented occupations (same wage-category), or incongruous occupations (opposite wage-category). To measure decision-making, participants viewed the same faces again (with occupations absent) and decided on the putative income of each person: low, low-average, high-average, or high. Participants were encouraged to decide spontaneously and intuitively. Hence, the decision task was an implicit or indirect test of relational memory. If conscious thought alone guided decisions (= H0), supraliminal information should determine decision outcomes independently of the encoded subliminal information. This was, however, not the case. Instead, both unconsciously and consciously encoded memories influenced decisions: identical unconscious and conscious memories exerted the strongest bias on income decisions, while both incongruous and congruous (i.e., non-identical) subliminally and supraliminally formed memories canceled each other out leaving no bias on decisions. Importantly, the increased decision bias following the formation of identical unconscious and conscious memories and the reduced decision bias following to the formation of non-identical memories were determined relative to a control condition, where conscious memory formation alone could influence decisions. In view of the much weaker representational strength of subliminally vs. supraliminally formed memories, their long-lasting impact on decision-making is noteworthy.

Dataset Information

Decisions bias future choices by modifying hippocampal associative memories.

Publications

Decisions bias future choices by modifying hippocampal associative memories.

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