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. 2015:2015:108417.
doi: 10.1155/2015/108417. Epub 2015 Oct 11.

P300 and Decision Making under Risk and Ambiguity

Lei Wang  1 , Jiehui Zheng  1 , Shenwei Huang  1 , Haoye Sun  1
Affiliations

P300 and Decision Making under Risk and Ambiguity

Lei Wang et al. Comput Intell Neurosci. 2015.

Abstract

Our study aims to contrast the neural temporal features of early stage of decision making in the context of risk and ambiguity. In monetary gambles under ambiguous or risky conditions, 12 participants were asked to make a decision to bet or not, with the event-related potentials (ERPs) recorded meantime. The proportion of choosing to bet in ambiguous condition was significantly lower than that in risky condition. An ERP component identified as P300 was found. The P300 amplitude elicited in risky condition was significantly larger than that in ambiguous condition. The lower bet rate in ambiguous condition and the smaller P300 amplitude elicited by ambiguous stimuli revealed that people showed much more aversion in the ambiguous condition than in the risky condition. The ERP results may suggest that decision making under ambiguity occupies higher working memory and recalls more past experience while decision making under risk mainly mobilizes attentional resources to calculate current information. These findings extended the current understanding of underlying mechanism for early assessment stage of decision making and explored the difference between the decision making under risk and ambiguity.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Stimulus: risk stimuli and ambiguous stimuli.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Task procedure.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Behavioral data: reaction time and proportion of choosing to bet for decision under ambiguity and risk.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Grand averaged ERP waveforms for two stimulus conditions at electrode sites FZ, FCZ, CZ, and CPZ.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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