Memory and decision-making

The memory system plays a key role in the decision-making process because individuals constantly choose among alternative options. Due to the volume of decisions made, much of the decision-making process is unconscious and automatic. Information about how a decision is made is remembered and used for future decisions. Memory is susceptible to biases, but it is integral to the formation of preferences and to differentiation between choices. The memory system plays a key role in the decision-making process because individuals constantly choose among alternative options. Due to the volume of decisions made, much of the decision-making process is unconscious and automatic. Information about how a decision is made is remembered and used for future decisions. Memory is susceptible to biases, but it is integral to the formation of preferences and to differentiation between choices. The preferences-as-memory (PAM) framework is a model that maps the role of memory in decision-making. It suggests that decisions are chosen based on the retrieval of relevant knowledge from memory. This knowledge includes information from previous identical and similar situations. The model assumes that, because the memory system is so complex, there never is one precise optimal choice. Classic models of judgment and decision-making assume that all individuals abide to a given set of assumptions when making a decision. Humans are believed to have stable preferences that follow the rules of continuity and precision, and so we will make consistent choices regardless of the influence of any internal or external factors. These assumptions have been challenged. A growing body of evidence suggests that our preferences are constructed for each novel occurrence of a situation and thus are not as stringent as previously thought. The PAM framework diverges from classical models and views our preferences as volatile and subject to change. Memory integration dictates one's preferences for a given alternative. The PAM model suggests that preferences are formed when individuals retrieve from memory a set of queries regarding the attributes of the alternative choices. These queries are believed to be an automatic, unconscious process. Many individuals think largely in terms of emotions when asked to make a decision, and so the way in which a question is posed as well as the manner in which it is asked impacts the decision-making process. If asked to choose where to go for dinner, one will select a series of possible restaurants, consider each option, and determine the positive attributes of each. The restaurant chosen will be the one with the greatest number of positive attributes. This choice depends on the order in which one evaluates the benefits of each option and whether one considers the negative rather than the positive possibilities. The phrasing of a question also affects this query process. For example, 'the car tapped the pole' versus 'the car crashed into the pole.' The framing of a question primes different components of the memory system and has the ability to reconstruct our memories. Memory is not an event that occurs in isolation, but is integrated and thus influenced by the goals of the decision-maker, the questions posed, and an infinite amount of internal and external factors. The priming effect is another key aspect of how memory influences decisions. Priming activates a certain memory node that results in easier accessibility later on. A recent study examined the impact of playing certain types of music in a store that sells wine. German wines were sold at a higher rate when German music was played, and French wines sold better when French music was played. This effect resulted in a quarter of the variance in wine sales. Priming increases the accessibility of a memory and may be the reason we chose one alternative over the other. Memory for events is constantly changing in both its short-term accessibility and how the content is stored long-term. A question posed before giving one's preference can influence the short-term accessibility of memory, as can anchoring effects. Questions posed also can have significant long-term effects, can reconstruct memory, and can predict or influence behavior. For example, students who answered affirmative to the question of whether they would vote in the upcoming election increased their voting behavior even though the question was asked months beforehand. The memory system suffers from inhibition. This is why it is difficult to hold two different phone numbers in working memory at the same time. Although it may seem that inhibition impedes our memory system, it allows humans to focus on the relevant details and ignore irrelevant ones when required to make quick decisions. Earlier queries can establish preferences that inhibit responses to later queries. A person who is presented with two items and asked to choose between the two is more likely to be choose the item that was presented first. Order matters because inhibition influences both our memory and preferences so that new information competes with older information in regards to memory space and memory associations. The hierarchal structure of the memory system is a construct of elaborate categories that people create to classify objects. Instead of memory connections between all knowledge, we have connections between various concept nodes. For example, a person who is asked to retrieve a bird from memory thinks first of the concept node of all animals, then of all animals that can fly, and finally of a bird that is the most stereotypical of the class; for example, a robin. A penguin would be less likely to be retrieved because a penguin is less typical of the class. This may be the reason why it is more difficult to make decisions about abstract, non-hierarchical concepts like time and money. It is easy to envision a pencil but more difficult to decide what to do with a sum of money or how to spend the next three hours of free time.