Humans and other animals evolved to make decisions that extend over time with continuous and ever-changing options. Nonetheless, the academic study of decision-making is mostly limited to the simple case of choice between two options. Here, we advocate that the study of choice should expand to include continuous decisions. Continuous decisions, by our definition, involve a continuum of possible responses and take place over an extended period of time during which the response is continuously subject to modification. In most continuous decisions, the range of options can fluctuate and is affected by recent responses, making consideration of reciprocal feedback between choices and the environment essential. The study of continuous decisions raises new questions, such as how abstract processes of valuation and comparison are co-implemented with action planning and execution, how we simulate the large number of possible futures our choices lead to, and how our brains employ hierarchical structure to make choices more efficiently. While microeconomic theory has proven invaluable for discrete decisions, we propose that engineering control theory may serve as a better foundation for continuous ones. And while the concept of value has proven foundational for discrete decisions, goal states and policies may prove more useful for continuous ones.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘Existence and prevalence of economic behaviours among non-human primates’.

人类和其他动物进化为随着时间的推移做出不断变化的选择。尽管如此，决策的学术研究大多局限于在两个选项之间进行选择的简单案例。在这里，我们主张选择的研究应该扩大到包括持续的决策. 根据我们的定义，持续决策涉及一系列可能的响应，并在较长的时间内发生，在此期间响应不断受到修改。在大多数连续决策中，选项的范围可能会波动并受近期响应的影响，因此必须考虑选择与环境之间的相互反馈。对连续决策的研究提出了新的问题，例如评估和比较的抽象过程如何与行动计划和执行共同实现，我们如何模拟我们的选择导致的大量可能的未来，以及我们的大脑如何使用层次结构来更有效地做出选择。虽然微观经济理论已被证明对离散决策非常宝贵，我们建议工程控制理论可以作为连续控制理论的更好基础。虽然价值概念已被证明是离散决策的基础，但目标状态和政策可能对连续决策更有用。

本文是主题“非人类灵长类动物经济行为的存在和流行”的一部分。