The subjective well-being or happiness of individuals is an important metric for societies.
Although happiness is influenced by life circumstances and population demographics such as …

The effects of stress are frequently studied, yet its proximal causes remain unclear. Here we
demonstrate that subjective estimates of uncertainty predict the dynamics of subjective and …

Experiences affect mood, which in turn affects subsequent experiences. Recent studies
suggest two specific principles. First, mood depends on how recent reward outcomes differ from …

The human settlement of the Pacific Islands represents one of the most recent major migration
events of mankind. Polynesians originated in Asia according to linguistic evidence or in …

Making predictions about the rewards associated with environmental stimuli and updating
those predictions through feedback is an essential aspect of adaptive behavior. Theorists …

Making appropriate choices often requires the ability to learn the value of available options
from experience. Parkinson's disease is characterized by a loss of dopamine neurons in the …

Decision-making is often viewed as a two-stage process, where subjective values are first
assigned to each option and then the option of the highest value is selected. Converging …

Neuroimaging studies typically identify neural activity correlated with the predictions of highly
parameterized models, like the many reward prediction error (RPE) models used to study …

The neuromodulator dopamine has a well established role in reporting appetitive prediction
errors that are widely considered in terms of learning. However, across a wide variety of …

… Author Contributions: Dr Rutledge had full access to all the data in the study and takes …
Dr Rutledge is supported by an MRC Career Development Award (MR/N02401X/1). Dr …