Individual Differences in Intertemporal Choice

Developmental trends and individual differences in brain systems involved in intertemporal choice during adolescence.

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural systems activated during an intertemporal choice task in a group of 14- to 19-year-old adolescents, as well as the relationship of such activation patterns to individual differences in the self-reported ability to engage in nonimmediate thinking (i.e., less impulsive and more future-oriented thoughts and action)....

The neural representation of value and individual differences in human intertemporal choice

Intertemporal choices, or decisions that involve tradeoffs between rewards and time, are ubiquitous in our daily lives. The tendency to devalue, or discount, future rewards has been linked to maladaptive long-term health and financial outcomes. Despite their broad clinical relevance, individual differences in discounting preferences are poorly understood. In this thesis, we make progress on the...

Brain activations reflect individual discount rates in intertemporal choice.

Humans discount the value of future rewards following a hyperbolic function and thus may prefer a smaller immediate reward over a larger delayed reward. Marked interindividual differences in the steepness of this discounting function can be observed which can be quantified by the parameter k of the discount function. Here, we asked how differences in delay discounting behaviour are reflected by...

Neural Systems Underlying Individual Differences in Intertemporal Decision-making

Excessively choosing immediate over larger future rewards, or delay discounting (DD), associates with multiple clinical conditions. Individual differences in DD likely depend on variations in the activation of and functional interactions between networks, representing possible endophenotypes for associated disorders, including alcohol use disorders (AUDs). Numerous fMRI studies have probed the ...

Intertemporal Choice