How uncertainty can impair our ability to make rational decisions – new research

By Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology, University of Cambridge
Aleya Aziz Marzuki, PhD Candidate in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Cambridge

We make decisions every day, many of which are so straightforward that we hardly notice we are making them. But we tend to struggle when faced with decisions that have uncertain outcomes, such as during the pandemic. Cognitive scientists have long been interested in understanding how people make such uncertain decisions. Now our new research, published in the journal, JAMA Network Open, gives a clue.

Scientists typically test decision-making under uncertainty using “probabilistic tasks”,…

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