Variation in primate decision-making under uncertainty and the roots of human economic behaviour

Flexible information-seeking in chimpanzees

Humans can flexibly use metacognition to monitor their own knowledge and strategically acquire new information when needed. While humans can deploy these skills across a variety of contexts, most evidence for metacognition in animals has focused on simple situations, such as seeking out information about the location of food. Here, we examine the flexibility, breadth, and limits of this skill in chimpanzees. We tested semi-free-ranging chimpanzees on a novel task where they could seek information by standing up to peer into different containers. In Study 1, we tested n = 47 chimpanzees to assess if chimpanzees would spontaneously engage in information-seeking without prior experience, as well as to characterize individual variation in this propensity. We found that many chimpanzees engaged in information-seeking with minimal experience, and that younger chimpanzees and females were more likely to do so. In two subsequent studies, we then further tested chimpanzees who initially showed robust information-seeking on new variations of this task, to disentangle the cognitive processing shaping their behaviors. In Study 2, we examined how a subset of n = 12 chimpanzees applied these skills to seek information about the location versus the identity of rewards, and found that chimpanzees were equally adept at seeking out location and identity information. In Study 3, we examined whether a subset of n = 6 chimpanzees could apply these skills to make more efficacious decisions when faced with uncertainty about reward payoffs. Chimpanzees were able to use information-seeking to resolve risk and choose more optimally when faced with uncertain payoffs, although they often also engaged in information-seeking when it was not strictly necessary. These results identify core features of flexible metacognition that chimpanzees share with humans, as well as constraints that may represent key evolutionary shifts in human cognition.

Children's risk preferences vary across sexes, social contexts, and cultures

People exhibit more risk-prone behaviors when together with peers than when in private. The interplay of social context effects and other variables that alter human risk preferences (i.e., age, sex, or culture) remains poorly understood. Here, we explored risk preferences among Namibian Hai||om and Ovambo children (N = 144; AgeRange = 6-10 years). Participants chose between risky and safe options in private or during peer presence. In a third condition, children collaborated with peers before their risk preferences were assessed in those peers' presence. Children from both societies were risk-averse, but Hai||om children showed greater risk aversion than their Ovambo counterparts. Across cultures and ages, boys were less averse to risks than girls. This effect was most pronounced during peer presence, whereas collaboration did not additionally affect risk preferences. These results suggest a dynamic interplay of individual, social, and cultural factors shaping children's risk preferences.

Individual differences in sociocognitive traits in semi-free-ranging rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)

Characterizing individual differences in cognition is crucial for understanding the evolution of cognition as well as to test the biological consequences of different cognitive traits. Here, we harnessed the strengths of a uniquely large, naturally-living primate population at the Cayo Santiago Biological Field Station to characterized individual differences in rhesus monkey performance across two social cognitive tasks. A total of n = 204 semi-free-ranging adult rhesus monkeys participated in a data collection procedure, where we aimed to test individuals on both tasks at two time-points that were one year apart. In the socioemotional responses task, we assessed monkeys' attention to conspecific photographs with neutral versus negative emotional expressions. We found that monkeys showed overall declines in interest in conspecific photographs with age, but relative increases in attention to threat stimuli specifically, and further that these responses exhibited long-term stability across repeated testing. In the gaze following task we assessed monkeys' propensity to co-orient with an experimenter. Here, we found no evidence for age-related change in responses, and responses showed only limited repeatability over time. Finally, we found some evidence for common individual variation for performance across the tasks: monkeys that showed greater interest in conspecific photographs were more likely to follow a human's gaze. These results show how studies of comparative cognitive development and aging can provide insights into the evolution of cognition, and identify core primate social cognitive traits that may be related across and within individuals.

Probabilistic inference and Bayesian-like estimation in animals: Empirical evidence

Animals often make decisions without perfect knowledge of environmental parameters like the quality of an encountered food patch or a potential mate. Theoreticians often assume animals make such decisions using a Bayesian updating process that combines prior information about the frequency distribution of resources in the environment with sample information from an encountered resource; such a process leads to decisions that maximize fitness, given the available information. I examine three aspects of empirical work that shed light on the idea that animals can make such decisions in a Bayesian-like manner. First, many animals are sensitive to variance differences in behavioral options, one metric used to characterize frequency distributions. Second, several species use information about the relative frequency of preferred versus nonpreferred items in different populations to make probabilistic inferences about samples taken from populations in a manner that results in maximizing the likelihood of obtaining a preferred reward. Third, the predictions of Bayesian models often match the behavior of individuals in two main approaches. One approach compares behavior to models that make different assumptions about how individuals estimate the quality of an environmental parameter. The patch exploitation behavior of nine species of birds and mammals has matched the predictions of Bayesian models. The other approach compares the behavior of individuals who learn, through experience, different frequency distributions of resources in their environment. The behavior of three bird species and bumblebees exploiting food patches and fruit flies selecting mates is influenced by their experience learning different frequency distributions of food and mates, respectively, in ways consistent with Bayesian models. These studies lend support to the idea that animals may combine prior and sample information in a Bayesian-like manner to make decisions under uncertainty, but additional work on a greater diversity of species is required to better understand the generality of this ability.

Dorsal raphe neurons integrate the values of reward amount, delay, and uncertainty in multi-attribute decision-making

The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is implicated in psychiatric disorders that feature impaired sensitivity to reward amount, impulsivity when facing reward delays, and risk-seeking when confronting reward uncertainty. However, it has been unclear whether and how DRN neurons signal reward amount, reward delay, and reward uncertainty during multi-attribute value-based decision-making, where subjects consider these attributes to make a choice. We recorded DRN neurons as monkeys chose between offers whose attributes, namely expected reward amount, reward delay, and reward uncertainty, varied independently. Many DRN neurons signaled offer attributes, and this population tended to integrate the attributes in a manner that reflected monkeys' preferences for amount, delay, and uncertainty. After decision-making, in response to post-decision feedback, these same neurons signaled signed reward prediction errors, suggesting a broader role in tracking value across task epochs and behavioral contexts. Our data illustrate how the DRN participates in value computations, guiding theories about the role of the DRN in decision-making and psychiatric disease.

A critical review of risk-sensitive foraging

Foraging is risk sensitive if choices depend on the variability of returns from the options as well as their mean return. Risk-sensitive foraging is important in behavioural ecology, psychology and neurophysiology. It has been explained both in terms of mechanisms and in terms of evolutionary advantage. We provide a critical review, evaluating both mechanistic and evolutionary accounts. Some derivations of risk sensitivity from mechanistic models based on psychophysics are not convincing because they depend on an inappropriate use of Jensen's inequality. Attempts have been made to link risk sensitivity to the ecology of a species, but again these are not convincing. The field of risk-sensitive foraging has provided a focus for theoretical and empirical work and has yielded important insights, but we lack a simple and empirically defendable general account of it in either mechanistic or evolutionary terms. However, empirical analysis of choice sequences under theoretically motivated experimental designs and environmental settings appears a promising avenue for mapping the scope and relative merits of existing theories. Simply put, the devil is in the sequence.

State-dependent risky choices in primates: Variation in energy budget does not affect tufted capuchin monkeys' (Sapajus spp.) risky choices

Economic models predict that rational decision makers' choices between a constant, "safe" option and a variable, "risky" option leading, on average, to the same payoff, should be random. However, a wealth of research has revealed that, when faced with risky decisions, both human and nonhuman animals deviate from economic rationality. According to the risk-sensitivity theory, individuals should prefer a safe option when they are in a positive energy state and a risky option when they are in a negative energy state. The abundance/risk hypothesis proposes that individuals should prefer risky options when diet quality exceeds their nutritional requirements. We tested how energy budget affects decision making under risk by presenting 22 capuchins belonging to two colonies (IT: N = 12, US: N = 10) with a risky choice task. Capuchins had to choose between a constant option (always four food items) and a variable option (one or seven food items with a 50% probability) in two conditions. In the Low-energy condition capuchins were tested before their main meal, whereas in the High-energy condition they were tested following a high-caloric meal. In neither colony did we find a significant difference between conditions, suggesting that the energy budget did not affect risk preferences. However, we found differences between colonies in their general response to risky choices: US capuchins were more risk-prone after selecting a safe option than a risky option and after selecting a bad (one food item) than a good (seven food items) risky option, whereas this did not hold true in IT capuchins. Furthermore, in the IT colony, males were more risk-prone under the High-energy condition compared to the Low-energy condition. Subtle differences in individual characteristics, management conditions, or stochastic founder effects may be implied, with relevant consequences for the outcomes of research on risky decision-making across laboratories.

Dorsal raphe neurons signal integrated value during multi-attribute decision-making

The dorsal raphe nucleus (DRN) is implicated in psychiatric disorders that feature impaired sensitivity to reward amount, impulsivity when facing reward delays, and risk-seeking when grappling with reward uncertainty. However, whether and how DRN neurons signal reward amount, reward delay, and reward uncertainty during multi-attribute value-based decision-making, where subjects consider all these attributes to make a choice, is unclear. We recorded DRN neurons as monkeys chose between offers whose attributes, namely expected reward amount, reward delay, and reward uncertainty, varied independently. Many DRN neurons signaled offer attributes. Remarkably, these neurons commonly integrated offer attributes in a manner that reflected monkeys' overall preferences for amount, delay, and uncertainty. After decision-making, in response to post-decision feedback, these same neurons signaled signed reward prediction errors, suggesting a broader role in tracking value across task epochs and behavioral contexts. Our data illustrate how DRN participates in integrated value computations, guiding theories of DRN in decision-making and psychiatric disease.

Distinct developmental trajectories for risky and impulsive decision-making in chimpanzees

Human adolescence is characterized by a suite of changes in decision-making and emotional regulation that promote risky and impulsive behavior. Accumulating evidence suggests that behavioral and physiological shifts seen in human adolescence are shared by some primates, yet it is unclear if the same cognitive mechanisms are recruited. We examined developmental changes in risky choice, intertemporal choice, and emotional responses to decision outcomes in chimpanzees, our closest-living relatives. We found that adolescent chimpanzees were more risk-seeking than adults, as in humans. However, chimpanzees showed no developmental change in intertemporal choice, unlike humans, although younger chimpanzees did exhibit elevated emotional reactivity to waiting compared to adults. Comparisons of cortisol and testosterone indicated robust age-related variation in these biomarkers, and patterns of individual differences in choices, emotional reactivity, and hormones also supported a developmental dissociation between risk and choice impulsivity. These results show that some but not all core features of human adolescent decision-making are shared with chimpanzees. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Comparative curiosity: How do great apes and children deal with uncertainty?

Humans are perhaps the most curious animals on earth, but to what extent our innate motivations for discovering new information are shared with our closest relatives remain poorly understood. To shed light on this question, we presented great apes with two experimental paradigms in which they had to initially choose between an empty opaque cup and a baited opaque cup with rewards invisible to the ape in study 1, or to choose between a transparent cup with rewards or a baited opaque cup with rewards invisible to the ape in studies 2 and 3. We also presented young children with scenarios comparable to the second paradigm (studies 4 and 5). Notably, after the initial choice phase, we presented participants with potential alternatives providing better rewards than the previously secured options. Importantly, those alternatives shared some features with the uncertain options, giving subjects the possibility to relate both options through analogical reasoning. We found that most great apes were not curious about the uncertain options. They only explored those options after they were presented with the alternatives. Children, instead, explored the uncertain options before the alternatives were presented, showing a higher degree of curiosity than the great apes. We argue that differences between children and apes mostly lay in motivational dispositions to explore the unknown.

Chimpanzee and Human Risk Preferences Show Key Similarities

Risk preference impacts how people make key life decisions related to health, wealth, and well-being. Systematic variations in risk-taking behavior can be the result of differences in fitness expectations, as predicted by life-history theory. Yet the evolutionary roots of human risk-taking behavior remain poorly understood. Here, we studied risk preferences of chimpanzees (86 Pan troglodytes; 47 females; age = 2-40 years) using a multimethod approach that combined observer ratings with behavioral choice experiments. We found that chimpanzees' willingness to take risks shared structural similarities with that of humans. First, chimpanzees' risk preference manifested as a traitlike preference that was consistent across domains and measurements. Second, chimpanzees were ambiguity averse. Third, males were more risk prone than females. Fourth, the appetite for risk showed an inverted-U-shaped relation to age and peaked in young adulthood. Our findings suggest that key dimensions of risk preference appear to emerge independently of the influence of human cultural evolution.

Systematic comparison of risky choices in humans and monkeys

The past decades have seen tremendous progress in fundamental studies on economic choice in humans. However, elucidation of the underlying neuronal processes requires invasive neurophysiological studies that are met with difficulties in humans. Monkeys as evolutionary closest relatives offer a solution. The animals display sophisticated and well-controllable behavior that allows to implement key constructs of proven economic choice theories. However, the similarity of economic choice between the two species has never been systematically investigated. We investigated compliance with the independence axiom (IA) of expected utility theory as one of the most demanding choice tests and compared IA violations between humans and monkeys. Using generalized linear modeling and cumulative prospect theory (CPT), we found that humans and monkeys made comparable risky choices, although their subjective values (utilities) differed. These results suggest similar fundamental choice mechanism across these primate species and encourage to study their underlying neurophysiological mechanisms.

Rationality and cognitive bias in captive gorillas' and orang-utans' economic decision-making

Human economic decision-making sometimes appears to be irrational. Partly, this is due to cognitive biases that can lead to suboptimal economic choices and context-dependent risk-preferences. A pertinent question is whether such biases are part of our evolutionary heritage or whether they are culturally acquired. To address this, we tested gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and orang-utans (Pongo abelii) with two risk-assessment experiments that differed in how risk was presented. For both experiments, we found that subjects increased their preferences for the risky options as their expected gains increased, showing basic understanding of reward contingencies and rational decision-making. However, we also found consistent differences in risk proneness between the two experiments, as subjects were risk-neutral in one experiment and risk-prone in the other. We concluded that gorillas and orang-utans are economically rational but that their decisions can interact with pre-existing cognitive biases which modulates their risk-preference in context-dependent ways, explaining the variability of their risk-preference in previous literature.

The origins of cognitive flexibility in chimpanzees

Cognitive flexibility is a core component of executive function, a suite of cognitive capacities that enables individuals to update their behavior in dynamic environments. Human executive functions are proposed to be enhanced compared to other species, but this inference is based primarily on neuroanatomical studies. To address this, we examined the nature and origins of cognitive flexibility in chimpanzees, our closest living relatives. Across three studies, we examined different components of cognitive flexibility using reversal learning tasks where individuals first learned one contingency and then had to shift responses when contingencies flipped. In Study 1, we tested n = 82 chimpanzees ranging from juvenility to adulthood on a spatial reversal task, to characterize the development of basic shifting skills. In Study 2, we tested how n = 24 chimpanzees use spatial versus arbitrary perceptual information to shift, a proposed difference between human and nonhuman cognition. In Study 3, we tested n = 40 chimpanzees on a probabilistic reversal task. We found an extended developmental trajectory for basic shifting and shifting in response to probabilistic feedback-chimpanzees did not reach mature performance until late in ontogeny. Additionally, females were faster to shift than males were. We also found that chimpanzees were much more successful when using spatial versus perceptual cues, and highly perseverative when faced with probabilistic versus consistent outcomes. These results identify both core features of chimpanzee cognitive flexibility that are shared with humans, as well as constraints on chimpanzee cognitive flexibility that may represent evolutionary changes in human cognitive development.

Prefrontal Dopaminergic Regulation of Cue-Guided Risky Decision-Making Performance in Rats

Risky decision-making is the decision made by individuals when they know the probability of each outcome. In order to survive in unpredictable environments, it is necessary for individuals to assess the probability of events occurring to an make appropriate decisions. There are few studies on the neural basis of risky decision-making behavior guided by external cues, which is related to the relative paucity of animal behavioral paradigms. Previous studies have shown that the prefrontal cortex (PFC) plays a key role in risk-based decision-making. The PFC receives projections from the dopamine (DA) system from the ventral tegmental area of the midbrain. The mesocorticolimbic DA system regulates the judgments of reward and value in decision-making. However, the specific receptor mechanism for prefrontal DA regulation of cue-guided risky decision-making behavior remains unclear. Here we established a cue-guided risky decision-making behavioral paradigm (RDM task) to detect the behavior of rats making decisions between a small certain reward and a large uncertain reward in a self-paced manner. The D1 receptor antagonist SCH-23390 (5 mM) or agonist SKF-82958 (5 mM), and the D2 receptor antagonist thioridazine hydrochloride (5 mM) or agonist MLS-1547 (5 mM) was injected into the mPFC, respectively, to investigate how the behavior in the RDM task was changed. The results showed that: (1) rats were able to master the operation of the cue-guided RDM task in a self-paced way; (2) a majority of rats were inclined to choose risk rather than a safe option when the reward expectations were equal; and (3) risk selection was reduced upon inhibition of D1 receptors or stimulation of D2 receptors, but increased upon stimulation of D1 receptors or inhibition of D2 receptors, suggesting that the RDM performance is regulated by D1 and D2 receptors in the mPFC. The present results suggest that DA receptors in the mPFC of rats are involved in regulating cue-guided RDM behavior, with differential involvement of D1 and D2 receptors in the regulation.

Behavior of Rats in a Self-Paced Risky Decision-Making Task Based on Definite Probability

Risky decision-making (RDM) is when individuals make choices based on the definite cognition for the probabilities of the options. Risk is embodied in the certainty of reward, and the smaller the probability is, the greater the risk will be. As simulated in human behavior paradigms, RDM scenarios in real life are often guided by external cues that inform the likelihood of receiving certain rewards. There are few studies on the neural basis of RDM behavior guided by external cues, which is related to the relative paucity of the animal behavioral paradigms. Here, we established a cue-guided RDM task to detect the behavior of rats making a decision between a small certain reward and a large uncertain reward in a naturalistic manner. The reward of the risk option could be adjusted to observe the change of choice. Our results showed that: (1) rats were able to master the operation of the cue-guided RDM task; (2) many rats were inclined to choose risk rather than the safe option when the reward expectations were equal; (3) rats were able to adjust the decision strategy in time upon a change in risk, suggesting that they have the ability to perceive risk indicated by the external cues.

Economic behaviours among non-human primates

Do we have any valid reasons to affirm that non-human primates display economic behaviour in a sufficiently rich and precise sense of the phrase? To address this question, we have to develop a set of criteria to assess the vast array of experimental studies and field observations on individual cognitive and behavioural competences as well as the collective organization of non-human primates. We review a sample of these studies and assess how they answer to the following four main challenges. (i) Do we see any economic organization or institutions emerge among groups of non-human primates? (ii) Are the cognitive abilities, and often biases, that have been evidenced as underlying typical economic decision-making among humans, also present among non-human primates? (iii) Can we draw positive lessons from performance comparisons among primate species, humans and non-humans but also across non-human primate species, as elicited by canonical game-theoretical experimental paradigms, especially as far as economic cooperation and coordination are concerned? And (iv) in which way should we improve models and paradigms to obtain more ecological data and conclusions? Articles discussed in this paper most often bring about positive answers and promising perspectives to support the existence and prevalence of economic behaviours among non-human primates. This article is part of the theme issue 'Existence and prevalence of economic behaviours among non-human primates'.