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Making fast and accurate decisions is the goal right?
Right. But we know from research that there is a speed/accuracy trade off i.e. the faster you make a decisions the more it is likely to be inaccurate.
And what has dopamine got to do with this — I thought dopamine was a reward chemical also known for the little dopamine “hits” on social media?
Yes, dopamine is related to reward — as you mentioned particularly with reward learning i.e. you do something and get a reward — in the classic rat experiments they get something to eat.
But dopamine is also involved in movement — Parkinson’s is also related to dopamine and L-Dopa the common Parkinson’s medication simply boosts dopamine. Dopamine is also considered one of the key motivation chemicals.
Ok, and what did these researchers do?
The researchers from the University of Cologne in Germany had participants (humans not rats that is!) do various computer-based reward learning tasks. They did this under various conditions with L-Dopa for example, to boost dopamine, or with placebo.
And what were the results?
By using these computer-based learning scenarios they were more accurately able to measure responses and accuracy. And indeed…
