Symposium: Decision-making in health and disease - Part 1
Speaker(s):
Dr Elizabeth Rounis,
Dr Louise Whitley,
Steven Fleming
Date/Time: 28/05/2009, 1pm
We are constantly making decisions, from automatic reflexes such as stopping at a red traffic light, to complex and agonising choices such as which house to buy. In this symposium we heard about the factors that affect our decisions, and the brain processes that implement them.
In the first two talks we heard about how the brain gathers information over time, and how it learns to weigh up e different options based on how valuable they are to us now and in the future. In the third talk (part 2) we heard about what happens when these decision making systems go wrong, both in healthy individuals and in psychiatric disorders. Then finally we discussed decision making in groups, how animals and humans cooperate and compete, and what this might tell us about morality. As we went through the talks, we highlighted how bringing together mathematical models with knowledge about the brain and our behaviour can give us a richer understanding of the plethora of choices that affect our lives.
The second part of this symposium can be accessed here:
Symposium: Decision-making in
health and disease - Part 2
The talks in this first part of the symposium include the following:
The mathematical brain:What is a decision, and what's going on in the
brain?
by Elisabeth Rounis and Louise Whiteley
Decisions in the real world range from simple choices such as
which bag of sweets to buy, to complex decisions such as which flat to rent. One problem we
often face is that sometimes the options aren't clear, and we need to gather information to
help us decide - for example, when you think you recognise a friend walking towards you, but
wait until they get a bit closer before you start waving and calling their name. Often, we
don't have time to gather all the relevant information, so the brain makes a
trade-off between speed and accuracy - if the person you think you recognise is about to jump
on a bus, you might risk feeling a bit silly and call their name even before you are
completely sure it's them! In this talk, we explore how the brain gathers information in
favour of different options, and in particular how prior knowledge may influence these
decisions - in the example, knowing that you are close to your friend's house might make you
more confident it was them.
The fussy brain: What makes one option more attractive than another?
by Louise Whiteley and Steven Fleming
In the 19th century, Jeremy Bentham suggested that we should act to maximise utility - choosing actions that lead to the greatest happiness. Although his ideas are still controversial, in one sense Bentham anticipated scientific studies of decision making today - his founding principle was that it is part of human nature to be driven towards things that give us pleasure. Similarly, understanding decision making in the brain starts from the principle that we weigh up the value of different outcomes, and pick the action that is likely to lead to the highest utility over time. How do we learn what is most valuable? How does the brain deal with probabilities and tradeoffs between different sources of information? Here we explore these questions, outlining different approaches the brain takes to solving these problems and the evolutionary roots of value.
Interesting links, references, and places:
Books:
Chris Frith: Making up the Mind
Dan Ariely: Predictably Irrational
Malcolm Gladwell: Blink
Kay R Jamison: An unquiet mind
Richard H Thaler & Cass R Sunstein: Nudge
Tim Harford: The Logic of Life
Daniel Dennett: Freedom Evolves
Read Montague: Why Choose this Book
Websites and blogs:
http://socialbrain.rsablogs.org.uk
http://brainsciencepodcast.wordpress.com
http://www.dericbownds.net/MindBlog.html
http://www.nature.com/neurosci/neuropod/index.html
Institutions with scientific talks and events:
The RSA - http://www.thersa.org/
TED - http://www.ted.com/
Dana Centre - www.danacentre.org.uk/
Wellcome Collection - www.wellcomecollection.org/
Royal Institution of Great Britain - www.rigb.org/
Royal Society - www.royalsociety.org/
Science Museum - www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/
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