Deformed Probability Estimation in the Goal-Directed reinforcement learning model explains anxious-depression dimensions of psychiatric disorders

Abstract Psychiatric disorders are complex, multi-dimensional pathologies rooted in diverse cognitive processes. Computational psychiatry aims to reveal distortions in these processes through behavior modeling, providing a deeper understanding of psychiatric disorders. Previous studies, using Daw’s two-stage task, had linked the imbalance between habitual/model-free and goal-directed/model-based behaviors to disorders with compulsive behaviors and intrusive thoughts. The model-based component relies on the estimation of environmental probabilities. Therefore, we added a well-known deformation in subjective probability estimation to the model and this improved the model fitting. More importantly, the fitted deformation explains some variance of the anxious-depression dimension of psychiatric symptoms. The deformation parameter is aligned with the description-experience gap in decision-making literature. Our results point to subjective possibly distortion as the probable underlying cognitive process of anxiety, apathy, and depression. This study also shows that the inclusion of cognitive biases in modeling can extract the hidden aspects of behavior possibility linked to disorders. Our approach enhances the precision of computational psychiatry and provides deeper insights into the cognitive processes underlying psychiatric symptoms, paving the way for more effective, personalized therapeutic strategies. Significance Statement This study builds on a previously used model and Data that indicated a correlation between Model-Based preference and certain psychiatric disorders. By adding distortion to the probability estimation, we identified a new parameter correlated with depression and anxiety. The augmented model demonstrates an improved fit to behavior and aligns with Gillan’s previous findings. Our approach enhances the precision of computational psychiatry and provides deeper insights into the cognitive processes underlying psychiatric symptoms, paving the way for more effective, personalized therapeutic strategies.