Context-dependency in valuation

Abstract

In the last few years, work in the nascent field of neuroeconomics has advanced understanding of the brain systems involved in value-based decision making. An important modulator of valuation processes is the specific context a decision maker is facing during choice. Recently, neuroeconomics has made great progress in understanding, on both the brain and behavioral level, how context-dependent perception affects valuation and choice. Here we describe how context-sensitive value coding accounts for choice set effects, differential perceptions of gains and losses, and expectancy effects of external (economic) signals.