| 1. |
- Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich, et al.
(author)
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The need for a behavioural science focus in research on mental health and mental disorders
- 2014
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In: International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 1049-8931 .- 1557-0657. ; 23, s. 28-40
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Psychology as a science offers an enormous diversity of theories, principles, and methodological approaches to understand mental health, abnormal functions and behaviours and mental disorders. A selected overview of the scope, current topics as well as strength and gaps in Psychological Science may help to depict the advances needed to inform future research agendas specifically on mental health and mental disorders. From an integrative psychological perspective, most maladaptive health behaviours and mental disorders can be conceptualized as the result of developmental dysfunctions of psychological functions and processes as well as neurobiological and genetic processes that interact with the environment. The paper presents and discusses an integrative translational model, linking basic and experimental research with clinical research as well as population-based prospective-longitudinal studies. This model provides a conceptual framework to identify how individual vulnerabilities interact with environment over time, and promote critical behaviours that might act as proximal risk factors for ill-health and mental disorders. Within the models framework, such improved knowledge is also expected to better delineate targeted preventive and therapeutic interventions that prevent further escalation in early stages before the full disorder and further complications thereof develop. In contrast to conventional personalized medicine that typically targets individual (genetic) variation of patients who already have developed a disease to improve medical treatment, the proposed framework model, linked to a concerted funding programme of the Science of Behaviour Change, carries the promise of improved diagnosis, treatment and prevention of health-risk behaviour constellations as well as mental disorders.
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| 2. |
- Scherbaum, Stefan, et al.
(author)
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From single decisions to sequential choice patterns : Extending the dynamics of value-based decision-making
- 2022
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 17:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Every day, we make many value-based decisions where we weigh the value of options with other properties, e.g. their time of delivery. In the laboratory, such value-based decision-making is usually studied on a trial by trial basis and each decision is assumed to represent an isolated choice process. Real-life decisions however are usually embedded in a rich context of previous choices at different time scales. A fundamental question is therefore how the dynamics of value-based decision processes unfold on a time scale across several decisions. Indeed, findings from perceptual decision making suggest that sequential decisions patterns might also be present for vale-based decision making. Here, we use a neural-inspired attractor model as an instance of dynamic models from perceptual decision making, as such models incorporate inherent activation dynamics across decisions. We use the model to predict sequential patterns, namely oscillatory switching, perseveration and dependence of perseveration on the delay between decisions. Furthermore, we predict RT effects for specific sequences of trials. We validate the predictions in two new studies and a reanalysis of existing data from a novel decision game in which participants have to perform delay discounting decisions. Applying the validated reasoning to a well-established choice questionnaire, we illustrate and discuss that taking sequential choice patterns into account may be necessary to accurately analyse and model value-based decision processes, especially when considering differences between individuals.
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| 3. |
- Scherbaum, Stefan, et al.
(author)
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Process dynamics in delay discounting decisions : An attractor dynamics approach
- 2016
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In: Judgment and Decision Making. - : Elsevier. - 1930-2975. ; 11:5, s. 472-495
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- How do people make decisions between an immediate but small reward and a delayed but large one? The outcome of such decisions indicates that people discount rewards by their delay and hence these outcomes are well described by discounting functions. However, to understand irregular decisions and dysfunctional behavior one needs models which describe how the process of making the decision unfolds dynamically over time: how do we reach a decision and how do sequential decisions influence one another? Here, we present an attractor model that integrates into and extends discounting functions through a description of the dynamics leading to a final choice outcome within a trial and across trials. To validate this model, we derive qualitative predictions for the intra-trial dynamics of single decisions and for the inter-trial dynamics of sequences of decisions that are unique to this type of model. We test these predictions in four experiments based on a dynamic delay discounting computer game where we study the intra-trial dynamics of single decisions via mouse tracking and the inter-trial dynamics of sequences of decisions via sequentially manipulated options. We discuss how integrating decision process dynamics within and across trials can increase our understanding of the processes underlying delay discounting decisions and, hence, complement our knowledge about decision outcomes.
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