The 1451 Review (Volume 1) 2021

representation of the decision problem, which includes identifying the internal
and the external states to the person, as well as the possible options that exist. As
such, fMRI studies have placed humans in simple decision-making situations and
have found that BOLD (Blood oxygenation level dependent) activity in the medial
orbitofrontal cortex (mOFC) correlates with behavioural measures of stimulus
values (Plassmann et al. 2007; Valentin et al. 2007; Hare et al. 2008). Note that
the OFC is involved in the cognitive process of decision-making, and more
specifically, the mOFC is responsible for creating associations between stimulusreward
and for reinforcing some behaviours. These results indicate that the
mOFC is where several variables are integrated into a single representation of the
value.
Secondly, each potential course of action gets a value that should be
representative of the benefits of such action. Evidence that the information is
integrated into a single value comes from an fMRI study, which looked at
charitable decision-making. In this study, it was found that activity in the OFC
correlated with behavioural measures of the value that participants assigned to
each charity. Moreover, that the OFC was responsible for integrating inputs from
other brain regions (Hare et al. 2010).
Thirdly, there needs to be a comparison between the different options for
the decision to take place. The brain cannot immediately access the information
on the value of the various courses of action, so it has to calculate it based on the
sequential random samples values from a normal distribution. Henceforth,
decisions are not only optimally made but also dynamically, as information from
the samples is integrated into a relative action value signal. The process finishes
when the value given to one of the choices is sufficiently biased (Usher and
McClelland 2001; Ratcliff and Smith 2004; Bogacz 2007).
After the decision has been made, the brain has to calculate the desirability
of the results. For example, a study proved that activity in the mOFC in response
to the consumption of wine depended on the consumer's beliefs about its price
(Plassmann et al. 2007). These suggest that cognitive processes that regulate
expectancies and beliefs modulate the outcome-valuation system. Lastly,
feedback is received in order to update and improve future decisions. When
learning happens, the value of the action is changed by a measure proportional to
the predicting error. In the right conditions and after time, the animal learns to
assign the correct value to each action (Rangel et al. 2008).
Basic Computations Involved in Decision-Making
Figure 1.
(Rangel, A et al., 2008, p.546). Basic computations involved in making a
choice.
But how do consumers make decisions when purchasing clothing items? Connell
and Kozar (2014) add that understanding customer behaviours when buying
clothes is complicated as both internal and external factors, to the consumer,
influence the decision-making process. The decision-making process when
purchasing clothing items can be affected by psychological, moral and cultural
factors (Brécard and Salladarré 2009). Berglung and Matti (2006) indicate that
individual decisions depend on ethical values and beliefs, culture, customs, and
other types of social, political and moral values. Institutional settings are also
shaping the individual decision-making by supporting, or not supporting, some
behaviours and attitudes. Other factors such as beauty, fashion, trends, emotions,
desires and social acceptance have been found to influence the decision-making
process itself (Niinimäki 2010).
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