Motivation and Decision Making Flashcards
Performed self-stimulation experiment, discovered the Dopamine Mesolimbic Pathway
Olds and Milner
Brain area that contains dopamine neurons, projects to the Nucleus Accumbens
Ventral Tagmental Area (VTA)
What does the Dopamine Mesolimbic Pathway encode?
Motivation/ wanting
The discrepancy between expectation and what actually occurs, may also reflect reward anticipation
Prediction error
Task used to study reward anticipation in humans
Monetary Incentive Delay task (MID)
What brain area is activated in anticipation of reward?
The Nucleus Accumbens
What brain area is activated in the outcome of receiving reward?
The ventromedial prefrontal cortex
4 influences of decision making
- external information
- memory
- motivation
- emotion
Central brain region involved in decision making
The prefrontal cortex
Subregion of the prefrontal cortex associated with assigning subjective value of an expected reward
Orbital-ventromedial prefrontal cortex
A theoretical person who always makes the same rational decisions and maximizes utility (value)
Homo Economicus
How people decide under uncertainty and risk
Prospect theory
The tendency to not treat gains and losses symmetrically
Risk aversion
Curve that describes how people assign value to options with the prospect of a gain or loss
A utility curve
The effect in which owning something endows it with greater value
The Endowment Effect (loss aversion)
