Optimizing sequential decisions in the drift-diffusion model
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Abstract: To make decisions organisms often accumulate information across multiple timescales. However, most experimental and modeling studies of decision-making focus on sequences of independent trials. On the other hand, natural environments are characterized by long temporal correlations, and evidence used to make a present choice is often relevant to future decisions. To understand decision-making under these conditions we analyze how a model ideal observer accumulates evidence to freely make choices across a sequence of correlated trials. We use principles of probabilistic inference to show that an ideal observer incorporates information obtained on one trial as an initial bias on the next. This bias decreases the time, but not the accuracy of the next decision. Furthermore, in finite sequences of trials the rate of reward is maximized when the observer deliberates longer for early decisions, but responds more quickly towards the end of the sequence. Our model also explains experimentally observed patterns in decision times and choices, thus providing a mathematically principled foundation for evidence-accumulation models of sequential decisions.
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Cites work
- scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3092986 (Why is no real title available?)
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Cited in
(9)- Evidence accumulation and change rate inference in dynamic environments
- Analyzing dynamic decision-making models using Chapman-Kolmogorov equations
- Stochastic models of evidence accumulation in changing environments
- Reward-rate maximization in sequential identification under a stochastic deadline
- Drift-diffusion models for multiple-alternative forced-choice decision making
- Decision-time statistics of nonlinear diffusion models: characterizing long sequences of subsequent trials
- Revealing multisensory benefit with diffusion modeling
- Visual decisions in the presence of measurement and stimulus correlations
- Convergence in human decision-making dynamics
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