Individual differences in risky decision-making among seniors reflect increased reward sensitivity

Frontiers in Neuroscience

卷:6

Helga A Harsay²  David eNeville²  K. Richard eRidderinkhof²  Irene eVan de Vijver²  Michael X Cohen²  Jessika I V Buitenweg²  Andrea eWatson²  James F eCavanagh² 

[1] Brown University;

[2] University of Amsterdam;

关键词: Aging;    impulsivity;    Reward;    BART;    Cognitive Modeling;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fnins.2012.00111

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Increasing age is associated with subtle but meaningful changes in decision-making.It is unknown, however, to what degree these psychological changes are reflective of age-related changes in decision quality.Here, we investigated the effect of age on latent cognitive processes associated with risky decision-making on the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART).In the BART, participants repetitively inflate a balloon in order to increase potential reward.At any point, participants can decide to cash out to harvest the reward, or they can continue, risking a balloon pop that erases all earnings.We found that among seniors, increasing age was associated with greater reward-related risk taking when the balloon has a higher probability of popping (i.e., a high risk condition). Cognitive modeling results from hierarchical Bayesian estimation suggested that performance differences were due to increased reward sensitivity in high risk conditions in seniors.

【 授权许可】

Unknown