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FriSem

Date
Fri January 10th 2025, 3:15 - 4:30pm

Dr. Natalie Biderman, Postdoc with Professor Anthony Wagner, Stanford University 

Title: Memory’s Role in Decision-Making: Navigating Choices Beyond Direct Experience

Abstract: Our decisions reflect who we are and shape who we become. While decision-making research has shown how past outcomes guide future choices by updating value representations, many decisions must be made among options we’ve never encountered before, where value is not immediately accessible. How do we navigate these uncertain choices? In this talk, I will present my PhD work, which explores how memory mechanisms support flexible decision-making by enabling generalization and inferential reasoning. First, I will discuss how we learn from possibilities that never materialized -- the “what ifs” of decision-making. I propose that memory forms associative links between chosen and unchosen options, shaping subsequent value updates for both. Next, I will explore how we approach entirely novel choices, demonstrating how conceptual knowledge allows us to extract and generalize value to unfamiliar options. Through this work, I highlight the fundamental role of memory in constructing and applying value to guide decisions, offering new insights into the interplay between memory and decision-making. Together, these findings underscore the adaptive nature of memory and its critical role in navigating choices beyond direct experience.