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In intertemporal decision making, individuals prefer smaller rewards delivered sooner over larger rewards delivered later, often to an extent that seems irrational from an economical perspective. This behavior has been attributed to a lack of self-control and reflection, the nonlinearity of human time perception, and several other sources. Although an increasing number of models propose different mathematical descriptions of temporal discounting, the dynamics of the decision process behind temporal discounting are much less clear. In this study, we obtained further insights into the mechanisms of intertemporal decisions by observing choice action dynamics via a novel combination of continuously recorded mouse movements and a multiple regression approach. Participants had to choose between two hypothetical options (sooner/smaller vs. later/larger) by moving the mouse cursor from the bottom of the screen either to the top left or to the top right. We observed less direct mouse movements when participants chose later/larger rewards, indicating that participants had to overcome the attraction of the sooner/smaller reward first. Additionally, our results suggest that framing time information differently changes the weighting of value. We conclude that using a continuous process-oriented approach could further advance the understanding of intertemporal choice beyond the identification of the best fitted mathematical description of the discounting function by uncovering the way intertemporal decisions are performed.

A central topic in the cognitive sciences is how cognitive control is adapted flexibly to changing task demands. Conflict monitoring theory originally proposed conflict triggered adjustments of cognitive control after a conflict trial to improve subsequent performance. In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that readjustments of cognitive control occur continuously within a conflict trial itself. Using frequency tagged electroencephalogram in a flanker task, we traced the allocation of attention to target and distracter stimuli. We found evidence for a conflict-triggered within-trial contrast enhancement dissociating target and distracters. This contrast enhancement vanished for consecutive trials with constant tagging frequencies, indicating that trial-to-trial conflict adaptation effects may, at least partly, be the product of interacting processes serving conflict resolution within trials.

When choosing between immediate and temporally delayed goods, people sometimes decide disadvantageously. Here, we aim to provide process-level insight into differences between individually determined advantageous and disadvantageous choices. Participants played a computer game, deciding between two different rewards of varying size and distance by moving an agent towards the chosen reward. We calculated individual models of advantageous choices and characterized the decision process by analyzing mouse movements. The larger amount of participants’ choices was classified as advantageous and the disadvantageous choices were biased towards choosing sooner/smaller rewards. The deflection of mouse movements indicated more conflict in disadvantageous choices compared with advantageous choices when the utilities of the options differed clearly. Further process oriented analysis revealed that disadvantageous choices were biased by a tendency for choice-repetition and an undervaluation of the value information in favour of the delay information, making rather simple choices harder than could be expected from the properties of the decision situation.

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