Memory and decision making interact to shape the value of unchosen options

Biderman, N., Shohamy, D.

Nat Commun 12, 4648 (2021). 

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24907-x

Abstract

The goal of deliberation is to separate between options so that we can commit to one and leave the other behind. However, deliberation can, paradoxically, also form an association in memory between the chosen and unchosen options. Here, we consider this possibility and examine its consequences for how outcomes affect not only the value of the options we chose, but also, by association, the value of options we did not choose. In five experiments (total n = 612), including a preregistered experiment (n = 235), we found that the value assigned to unchosen options is inversely related to their chosen counterparts. Moreover, this inverse relationship was associated with participants’ memory of the pairs they chose between. Our findings suggest that deciding between options does not end the competition between them. Deliberation binds choice options together in memory such that the learned value of one can affect the inferred value of the other.

From the Discussion

We found that stronger memory for the deliberated options is related to a stronger discrepancy between the value assigned to the chosen and unchosen options. This result suggests that choosing between options leaves a memory trace. By definition, deliberation is meant to tease apart the value of competing options in the service of making the decision; our findings suggest that deliberation and choice also bind pairs of choice options in memory. Consequently, unchosen options do not vanish from memory after a decision is made, but rather they continue to linger through their link to the chosen options.

We show that participants use the association between choice options to infer the value of unchosen options. This finding complements and extends previous studies reporting transfer of value between associated items in the same direction, which allows agents to generalize reward value across associated exemplars. For example, in the sensory preconditioning task, pairs of neutral items are associated by virtue of appearing in temporal proximity. Subsequently, just one item gains feedback—it is either rewarded or not. When probed to choose between items that did not receive feedback, participants tend to select those previously paired with rewarded items. In contrast, our participants tended to avoid the items whose counterpart was previously rewarded. Put in learning terms, when the chosen option proved to be successful, participants’ choices in our task reflected avoidance of, rather than approach to, the unchosen option. One important difference between our task and the sensory preconditioning task is the manner in which the association is formed. In both tasks a pair of items appears in close temporal proximity, yet in our task participants are also asked to decide between these items and the act of deliberation seems to result in an inverse association between the deliberated options.

The research is here.

Evolutionary biology meets consciousness: essay review

Browning, H., Veit, W. 

Biol Philos 36, 5 (2021). 

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-021-09781-7

Abstract

In this essay, we discuss Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka’s The Evolution of the Sensitive Soul from an interdisciplinary perspective. Constituting perhaps the longest treatise on the evolution of consciousness, Ginsburg and Jablonka unite their expertise in neuroscience and biology to develop a beautifully Darwinian account of the dawning of subjective experience. Though it would be impossible to cover all its content in a short book review, here we provide a critical evaluation of their two key ideas—the role of Unlimited Associative Learning in the evolution of, and detection of, consciousness and a metaphysical claim about consciousness as a mode of being—in a manner that will hopefully overcome some of the initial resistance of potential readers to tackle a book of this length.

Here is one portion:

Modes of being

The second novel idea within their book is to conceive of consciousness as a new mode of being, rather than a mere trait. This part of their argument may appear unusual to many operating in the debate, not the least because this formulation—not unlike their choice to include Aristotle’s sensitive soul in the title—evokes a sense of outdated and strange metaphysics. We share some of this opposition to this vocabulary, but think it best conceived as a metaphor.

They begin their book by introducing the idea of teleological (goal-directed) systems and the three ‘modes of being’, taken from the works of Aristotle, each of which is considered to have a unique telos (goal). These are: life (survival/reproduction), sentience (value ascription to stimuli), and rationality (value ascription to concepts). The focus of this book is the second of these—the “sensitive soul”. Rather than a trait, such as vision, G&J see consciousness as a mode of being, in the same way as the emergence of life and rational thought also constitute new modes of being.

In several places throughout their book, G&J motivate their account through this analogy, i.e. by drawing a parallel from consciousness to life and/or rationality. Neither, they think, can be captured in a simple definition or trait, thus explaining the lack of progress on trying to come up with definitions for these phenomena. Compare their discussion of the distinction between life and non-life. Life, they argue, is not a functional trait that organisms possess, but rather a new way of being that opens up new possibilities; so too with consciousness. It is a new form of biological organization at a level above the organism that gives rise to a “new type of goal-directed system”, one which faces a unique set of challenges and opportunities. They identify three such transitions—the transition from non-life to life (the “nutritive soul”), the transition from non-conscious to conscious (the “sensitive soul”) and the transition from non-rational to rational (the “rational soul”). All three transitions mark a change to a new form of being, one in which the types of goals change. But while this is certainly correct in the sense of constituting a radical transformation in the kinds of goal-directed systems there are, we have qualms with the idea that this formal equivalence or abstract similarity can be used to ground more concrete properties. Yet G&J use this analogy to motivate their UAL account in parallel to unlimited heredity as a transition marker of life.

The information is here.