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Choosing and learning: outcome valence differentially affects learning from free versus forced choices

View ORCID ProfileValérian Chambon, Héloïse Théro, Marie Vidal, Henri Vandendriessche, Patrick Haggard, Stefano Palminteri
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/637157
Valérian Chambon
Institut Jean Nicod, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, 75005 Paris, France
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  • ORCID record for Valérian Chambon
Héloïse Théro
Laboratoire de neurosciences cognitives computationnelles, Département d’études cognitives, École normale supérieure, INSERM, PSL University, 75005 Paris, France
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Marie Vidal
Institut Jean Nicod, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, 75005 Paris, FranceInstitute of Psychiatry and Neuroscience of Paris, INSERM, 75014 Paris, France
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Henri Vandendriessche
Laboratoire de neurosciences cognitives computationnelles, Département d’études cognitives, École normale supérieure, INSERM, PSL University, 75005 Paris, France
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Patrick Haggard
Laboratoire de neurosciences cognitives computationnelles, Département d’études cognitives, École normale supérieure, INSERM, PSL University, 75005 Paris, FranceInstitute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, London WC1N 3AZ, UK
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Stefano Palminteri
Laboratoire de neurosciences cognitives computationnelles, Département d’études cognitives, École normale supérieure, INSERM, PSL University, 75005 Paris, France
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  • For correspondence: stefano.palminteri@ens.fr
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Abstract

Positivity bias refers to learning more from positive than negative events. This learning asymmetry could either reflect a preference for positive events in general, or be the upshot of a more general, and perhaps, ubiquitous, “choice-confirmation” bias, whereby agents preferentially integrate information that confirms their previous decision. We systematically compared these two theories with 3 experiments mixing free- and forced-choice trials and featuring factual and counterfactual learning. Both behavioral and computational analyses of learning rates showed clear and robust evidence in favour of the “choice-confirmation” theory: participants amplified positive prediction errors in free-choice trials while being valence-neutral on forced-choice trials. We suggest that a choice-confirmation bias is adaptive to the extent that it reinforces actions that are most likely to meet an individual’s needs, i.e. freely chosen actions. In contrast, outcomes from unchosen actions are more likely to be treated impartially, i.e. to be assigned no special value in self-determined decisions.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted May 15, 2019.
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Choosing and learning: outcome valence differentially affects learning from free versus forced choices
Valérian Chambon, Héloïse Théro, Marie Vidal, Henri Vandendriessche, Patrick Haggard, Stefano Palminteri
bioRxiv 637157; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/637157
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Choosing and learning: outcome valence differentially affects learning from free versus forced choices
Valérian Chambon, Héloïse Théro, Marie Vidal, Henri Vandendriessche, Patrick Haggard, Stefano Palminteri
bioRxiv 637157; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/637157

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