P113. A Neural and Behavioral Tradeoff Between Value and Uncertainty Relates to Increased Exploration in Trait Anxiety

Abstract

Exploration reduces uncertainty and allows making more informed future decisions, at the cost of obtaining more uncertain outcomes. Exploration is prevalent in everyday life decisions (explore a new restaurant or exploit a profitable employment), and the ability to maintain a proper exploration-exploitation balance may therefore affect life quality. Anxiety is associated with increased aversion- and intolerance of uncertainty, yet it remains unclear whether and how anxiety affects human exploratory decision making.