The cognitive and neural dynamics of memory-based decisions

The recent years have seen the rise of neuroeconomics, a scientific discipline investigating the cognitive and neural principles of value-based decision making. While neuroeconomists made significant progress in characterizing basic computations of value-based decision making, the critical role of memory has all-too-often been neglected. Within this cumulative dissertation thesis, I present four manuscripts, which address the relation of memory and decision making. Manuscript 1 reviews empirical evidence which demonstrates that memory-based decisions are biased in favor of choice options which can be recalled from memory. Adopting cognitive process models, Manuscript 2 demonstrates that this memory bias is rather due to a single decision process, as compared to a dual-process account of memory-based decisions. Manuscript 3 focuses on the temporal dynamics of memory retrieval and choice formation, outlining altered evidence accumulation dynamics of memory-based versus standard value-based decisions. Finally, Manuscript 4 takes the first steps toward a cognitive process model
which accounts for the temporal dynamics of both, memory retrieval and decision making. While every manuscript can be approached individually, the synopsis part of this dissertation thesis discusses them in a broader perspective, drawing on the neuroeconomic framework by Rangel et al. (2008). All in all, this dissertation thesis advocates for neuroeconomics to take memory processes more seriously. Future research will especially profit from a deeper understanding of the temporal dynamics of memory retrieval and its relation to decision making.