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Poster C in Poster Session C: Wednesday, August 5, 9:30 – 11:15 am, Kimmel Center, Shorin & Rosenthal Rooms

Super-diffusive memory search drives fast and accurate decisions

Euan Prentis¹, Akram Bakkour¹; ¹University of Chicago

Presenter: Euan Prentis

How does the mind rapidly find relevant decisional evidence in memory? In the present work, we investigate whether humans leverage super-diffusive memory search to rapidly locate relevant decisional evidence. Firstly, we show via computational model simulations that super-diffusive search allows agents to span more of their memory space, retrieving information that influences choice more. This produces faster and more accurate decisions. Secondly, we present initial results (N = 8) from a human subjects experiment that characterizes the super-diffusivity of memory search from gaze trajectories measured with eye-tracking. In line with the simulations, super-diffusive trajectories were associated with faster and more accurate decisions. These results suggest that super-diffusive memory search may drive the powerful efficiency of human decisions.

Topic Area: Decision-Making, Cognitive Control & Event Cognition