We often make choices without knowing why or in some cases even without being aware that we made a choice at all. Moreover, we sometimes find ourselves having made choices that, with hindsight, we do not believe we should have made. For example, we might find ourselves with a cookie in our mouth despite firm intentions to diet; or we might find ourselves strongly liking or disliking a person without any knowledge of why.
These examples are puzzling because we tend to think that all choices are deliberate and based on information of which we are fully aware. Clearly, this is not the case. In fact, it may be the exception. Yet there must always be some signature of our choice, and of the ingredients that went into it, in our brains. In this research project, the Principal Investigators will conduct a series of studies that systematically explore what happens our brains when we make various kinds of decisions, some conscious, some non-conscious, using state-of-the-art tools from cognitive neuroscience: high resolution magnetic resonance imaging, and rare electrical recordings of the brain from neurosurgical patients. These studies will result in an unprecedented dissection of the different components that contribute to how we make decisions and provide novel insights into the role of consciousness in human behavior.
The studies will help to answer some important outstanding questions in neuroscience, psychology, and economics. How quickly do we make decisions? Are consciously made choices slower than ones made in the absence of consciousness? Do animals make conscious choices? How conscious are the choices made by people who are addicted to drugs, to shopping, or to gambling? Can we consciously override strong preferences of which we are not aware? Answering these questions will allow us to understand the mechanisms behind decision-making. It will also give us a deeper understanding of the nature of consciousness and what it contributes to human behavior. Finally, the insights obtained from our studies will lay the groundwork for engineering intelligent decision-making in computers, robots, and distributed systems.
