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- Title
Reward Value Revealed by Auction in Rhesus Monkeys.
- Authors
Al-Mohammad, Alaa; Schulz, Wolfram
- Abstract
Economic choice is thought to involve the elicitation of the subjective values of the choice options. Thus far, value estimation in animals has relied on stochastic choices between multiple options presented in repeated trials and expressed from averages of dozens of trials. However, subjective reward valuations are made moment-to-moment and do not always require alternative options; their consequences are usually felt immediately. Here, we describe a Becker–DeGroot–Marschak (BDM) auctionlike mechanism that provides more direct and simple valuations with immediate consequences. The BDM encourages agents to truthfully reveal their true subjective value in individual choices (“incentive compatibility”). Male monkeys reliably placed well-ranked BDM bids for up to five juice volumes while paying from a water budget. The bids closely approximated the average subjective values estimated with conventional binary choices (BCs), thus demonstrating procedural invariance and aligning with the wealth of knowledge acquired with these less direct estimation methods. The feasibility of BDM bidding in monkeys paves the way for an analysis of subjective neuronal value signals in single trials rather than from averages; the feasibility also bridges the gap to the increasingly used BDM method in human neuroeconomics.
- Subjects
RHESUS monkeys; REWARD (Psychology); NEUROECONOMICS; AUCTIONS; MONKEYS
- Publication
Journal of Neuroscience, 2022, Vol 42, Issue 8, p1510
- ISSN
0270-6474
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1275-21.2021