Feature-based valuation and its impairment in people with compulsive and addictive symptoms
- 1University of Texas at Austin
Abstract
Effective decision-making requires evaluating options based on relevant features while reducing attention to those that are not. However, how attention prioritizes one source of information over another during value-based decisions remains unknown. Across 7 experiments, we show that irrelevant features both constructively and destructively interfered with how values are assigned to choice options. When relevant and irrelevant features agreed, choice accuracy and speed were facilitated; when they conflicted, accuracy decreased and choices slowed in proportion to the value of the irrelevant feature. We modeled this interference as a weighted sum of relevant and irrelevant feature values. This model explained individual differences in choice behavior and, critically, tracked psychiatric symptom severity related to substance abuse and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This suggests that these symptoms may, in part, reflect an impaired ability to weigh relevant against irrelevant information when assigning value to choice options - a process we term feature-based valuation.
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BibTeX
@misc{moll2026featurebased,
title = {{Feature-based valuation and its impairment in people with compulsive and addictive symptoms}},
author = {M. Moll and R. Read and T. W. Elston},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.27.747558},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.27.747558v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Feature-based valuation and its impairment in people with compulsive and addictive symptoms
AU - M. Moll
AU - R. Read
AU - T. W. Elston
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/27
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.27.747558
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.27.747558v1
AB - Effective decision-making requires evaluating options based on relevant features while reducing attention to those that are not. However, how attention prioritizes one source of information over another during value-based decisions remains unknown. Across 7 experiments, we show that irrelevant features both constructively and destructively interfered with how values are assigned to choice options. When relevant and irrelevant features agreed, choice accuracy and speed were facilitated; when they conflicted, accuracy decreased and choices slowed in proportion to the value of the irrelevant feature. We modeled this interference as a weighted sum of relevant and irrelevant feature values. This model explained individual differences in choice behavior and, critically, tracked psychiatric symptom severity related to substance abuse and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This suggests that these symptoms may, in part, reflect an impaired ability to weigh relevant against irrelevant information when assigning value to choice options - a process we term feature-based valuation.
ER -