The adaptive value of probability distortion and risk-seeking in macaques' decision-making

Aurélien Nioche, Nicolas Rougier (), Marc Deffains (), Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde, Sébastien Ballesta and Thomas Boraud ()
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Aurélien Nioche: Department of Communications and Networking [Aalto Univ] - School of Electrical Engineering [Aalto Univ] - Aalto University
Nicolas Rougier: Mnemosyne - Mnemonic Synergy - LaBRI - Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique - UB - Université de Bordeaux - École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, Informatique et Radiocommunications de Bordeaux (ENSEIRB) - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - Centre Inria de l'Université de Bordeaux - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - IMN - Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives [Bordeaux] - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Marc Deffains: IMN - Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives [Bordeaux] - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Sébastien Ballesta: UNISTRA - Université de Strasbourg
Thomas Boraud: IMN - Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives [Bordeaux] - UB - Université de Bordeaux - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: In humans, the attitude toward risk is not neutral and is dissimilar between bets involving gains and bets involving losses. The existence and prevalence of these decision features in non-human primates are unclear. In addition, only a few studies have tried to simulate the evolution of agents based on their attitude toward risk. Therefore, we still ignore to which extent Prospect theory's claims are evolutionary rooted. To shed light on this issue, we collected data in 9 macaques that performed bets involving gains or losses. We confirmed that their overall behaviour is coherent with Prospect theory's claims. In parallel, we used a genetic algorithm to simulate the evolution of a population of agents across several generations. We showed that the algorithm selects progressively agents that exhibit risk-seeking and an inverted S-shape distorted perception of probability. We compared these two results and found that monkeys' attitude toward risk when facing losses only is congruent with the simulation. This result is consistent with the idea that gambling in the loss domain is analogous to deciding in a context of life-threatening challenges where a certain level of risk-seeking behaviours and probability distortions may be adaptive.

Keywords: Genetic algorithm; Cognitive biases; Monkey; Autonomous Cognitive Testing; Experimental economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-01-21
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-cmp, nep-evo, nep-neu, nep-rmg and nep-upt
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://inria.hal.science/hal-03005035v2
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Published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2021, 376 (1819), pp.20190668. ⟨10.1098/rstb.2019.0668⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03005035

DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2019.0668

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