Modeling value integration during decision making under uncertainty with the Florida and Georgia gambling task

Abstract

Humans frequently make decisions that involve repeated interactions under uncertainty in everyday life. A constellation of cognitive biases drive such decisions. To investigate the extent to which these biases influence decision making by altering how values are integrated in choices, we developed a novel paradigm—the Florida-And-Georgia (FLAG) gambling task. In the FLAG task, participants chose between a deck, which yields variable outcomes, and a sure-thing offer. This approach allows us to model value integration as influenced by both learning processes (e.g., primacy-recency bias) and key factors drawn from Prospect Theory, including sensitivity to outliers and loss aversion. Our findings on 170 young adults revealed that individuals underweight outliers for both gains and losses in their decision making and were biased by recent outcomes; but there was no evidence of loss aversion. The FLAG task strives to strike a balance between experimental control and ecological validity, providing insights into the cognitive processes involved in decision making. In closing, we discuss future directions for the FLAG task and its potential societal and clinical applications.