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2016 ; 113
(11
): 3102-7
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Economic irrationality is optimal during noisy decision making
#MMPMID26929353
Tsetsos K
; Moran R
; Moreland J
; Chater N
; Usher M
; Summerfield C
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
2016[Mar]; 113
(11
): 3102-7
PMID26929353
show ga
According to normative theories, reward-maximizing agents should have consistent
preferences. Thus, when faced with alternatives A, B, and C, an individual
preferring A to B and B to C should prefer A to C. However, it has been widely
argued that humans can incur losses by violating this axiom of transitivity,
despite strong evolutionary pressure for reward-maximizing choices. Here,
adopting a biologically plausible computational framework, we show that
intransitive (and thus economically irrational) choices paradoxically improve
accuracy (and subsequent economic rewards) when decision formation is corrupted
by internal neural noise. Over three experiments, we show that humans accumulate
evidence over time using a "selective integration" policy that discards
information about alternatives with momentarily lower value. This policy predicts
violations of the axiom of transitivity when three equally valued alternatives
differ circularly in their number of winning samples. We confirm this prediction
in a fourth experiment reporting significant violations of weak stochastic
transitivity in human observers. Crucially, we show that relying on selective
integration protects choices against "late" noise that otherwise corrupts
decision formation beyond the sensory stage. Indeed, we report that individuals
with higher late noise relied more strongly on selective integration. These
findings suggest that violations of rational choice theory reflect adaptive
computations that have evolved in response to irreducible noise during neural
information processing.