Explaining Multi-Scale Choice Dynamics

Sequences of choice response times exhibit ubiquitous and strong multi-scale dynamics (i.e., sequential dependencies across a broad range of temporal scales). Despite their pervasive nature, multi-scale dynamics are poorly understood. We show that dynamics in the seconds to minutes range can be explained by the superposition of several distinct learning and control mechanisms. Each mechanism learns a representation of the structure of the choice environment and/or an aspect of the decision maker’s ability. These representations are updated after each choice and used to control the next decision by modulating the parameters of an evidence-accumulation process with sub-second range dynamics that determine individual choices. We link these mechanisms to three major foci in the experimental study of sequential dependencies: stimulus-history, error-related, and hard-easy effects. This account provides a detailed explanation of both multi-scale dynamics of choice sequences, and the three effects, at the group and individual levels.