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Valence vs. Value in Decision-Making in Depression
Individuals with elevated symptoms of depression exhibit deficits in decision-making. Depressed individuals show
decreased sensitivity to rewards, but increased sensitivity to punishments. This may be critical to understanding depressionrelated
decision-making deficits, yet the computational nature of these effects is poorly understood. Participants (N=161)
completed a decision-making task wherein they chose between two options on each of 150 trials. Rewards for both options
were drawn from skewed-normal distributions with mean reward values of 0 points. For one option the reward distribution
was positively skewed—more frequently giving losses than gains. For the other option the reward distribution was negatively
skewed—more frequently giving gains than losses. Preference for the negatively-skewed option increased linearly as a function
of the degree of depressive symptoms. Modeling analyses indicate that depressive symptoms are associated with less effective
processing of reward magnitude and greater reliance on reward valence (gains vs. losses) in decision-making