FROM EXPLORATION TO CHOICE: NEURAL CORRELATES OF STOPPING DECISIONS IN OPEN-ENDED OPTION SPACES

Research on value-based decision-making has traditionally focused on settings in which individuals express preferences among a limited set of simultaneously presented options, typically two items displayed on a computer screen. However, in everyday life, options rarely appear all at once. Instead, options must be discovered sequentially within a vast space of alternatives. In such open spaces, individuals must decide not only what to choose, but also when to stop exploring and commit to a final choice. To investigate this process, we developed a series of tasks in which participants sequentially browse through seemingly unlimited series of items from different categories (food, music, posters, journals). At any point, they can stop exploration and choose their preferred option among those encountered so far. Using behavioral and self-report measures (N = 130), we show that the main factors driving stopping behavior are the number of options already explored and the value of the best option among them. Using fMRI (N = 36), we show that the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and bilateral anterior insula are involved in the decision to stop exploration and commit to a final choice. These findings might help understand why some people tend to be satisfied with the first good-enough option, whereas others tend to maximize the likelihood of finding the best possible option.