The neural mechanisms of inter-temporal decision-making: understanding variability.

By Jan Peters, Christian Büchel. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2011

660 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Humans and animals prefer immediate over delayed rewards (delay discounting). This preference for smaller-but-sooner over larger-but-later rewards shows substantial interindividual variability in healthy subjects. Moreover, a strong bias towards immediate reinforcement characterizes many psychiatric conditions such as addiction and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. We discuss the neural mechanisms underlying delay discounting and describe how interindividual variability (trait effects) in the neural instantiation of subprocesses of delay discounting (such as reward valuation, cognitive control and prospection) contributes to differences in behaviour. We next discuss different interventions that can partially remedy impulsive decision-making (state effects). Although the precise neural mechanisms underlying many of these modulating influences are only beginning to be unravelled, they point towards novel treatment approaches for disorders of impulse control.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental and Educational Psychology, General Decision Sciences

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/62f30915986589056d24a19d33d82f81599ff90b

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

1. Julie D. Henry
2. Daniel G. Goldstein
3. Ulf Böckenholt
4. Thomas Suddendorf
5. Adam Bulley

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

1. Martijn C. Willemsen
2. Julie D. Henry
3. Daniel G. Goldstein
4. Thomas Suddendorf

In General Decision Sciences

1. J. Russo
2. Julie D. Henry
3. Daniel G. Goldstein
4. Ulf Böckenholt
5. Gerd Gigerenzer
6. Robin M. Hogarth
7. Matthew T. Hora

Citations in the corpus

• Process-Tracing Methods in Decision Making: On Growing Up in the 70s (2017, background): “Methods such as transcranial magnetic stimulation allow researchers to actively intervene in the neural substrates behind a decision process to observe behavioral change (Peters & Büchel, 2011).”
• Prospection and the Present Moment: The Role of Episodic Foresight in Intertemporal Choices between Immediate and Delayed Rewards (2016, background): “A full discussion of the neural mechanisms underpinning intertemporal decision-making is beyond the scope of this article (for review see Peters & Büchel, 2011).”