Risky Business (3)

In previous blogs on this topic, I described a study showing how different levels of risk or uncertainty resulted in different patterns of brain activity. I suggested several viewpoints that the participants could have used under the uncertainty condition.

The experiment showed that the uncertainty condition produced activity in the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC). That activity could be interpreted as increased vigilance, alertness, or emotion. I think it might correspond to a subjective feeling, “This is unfamiliar territory. I need to be cautious.” There was a corresponding behavioral change toward increased caution.

The viewpoints I suggested are all mental strategies for morphing the situation into a more familiar territory. From the findings of the study, we know that the when the participants were given the odds, they treated the situation as more familiar territory, were less cautious and did not power up their the amygdalas. My speculation is that any of the viewpoints I described would readjust the situation to be subjectively like the condition in which the participants were given the odds and would give the same results.

These viewpoints illustrate what humans often (but not always) do to take cognitive control of an unfamiliar situation. They search through what they know to find points of similarity. They take a viewpoint that lets them see the matching points and use them to make a head model of the situation. That head model represents cognitive control and makes them more comfortable with the (previously) unfamiliar situation.

I think this process corresponds to what psychologists call closure. In common terms, this means finding a subjectively satisfying result. I described this process in other blogs:

TOTE unit http://cognitveeng.blogspot.com/2005/09/tote-units.html

Module quests and closure http://cognitveeng.blogspot.com/2005/07/module-quests-and-closure.html

Is this what module closure looks like?http://cognitveeng.blogspot.com/2005/09/is-this-what-module-closure-looks-like.html

The conceptual model I have in mind, derived from the TOTE unit, is that brain modules are activated with an internal goal. In the present case, the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) were activated to deal with the uncertain situation. The internal goal was something like, “Find a satisfactory strategy to deal with this situation.”

I believe that any of the viewpoints I described would be satisfactory to most people and so choosing one would deactivate the amygdala and OFC. The person would probably experience this closure as, “Now I think I know how to handle this situation.”

The important cognitive elements illustrated here are
Exploration
Flexibility of viewpoint
Choice.
Making a conscious choice may be quite important in this case. That action may be needed to produce subjective closure and turn off those emotional modules.

The exploration viewpoints are objective winners here, since they would collect information from the situation and help select the best strategy. (Best here means approved by economists and statisticians.)

But the pragmatist’s strategy is not bad either. It may not maximize the payoff, but if it satisfies the amygdala, it unloads one brain job and lets the brain get on to other work.

Maybe the real risk here is that the participant will waste brain power on the petty cash in the experiment rather than using it effectively on, say, that calculus test.