Effects and mechanisms of information saliency in enhancing value-based decision-making in younger and older adults

Chen, Hsiang-Yu; Dix, Annika; Goh, Joshua Oon Soo; Smolka, Michael N.; Thurm, Franka; Li, Shu‐Chen

doi:10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2020.11.018

Cited by 11 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 94 publications

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“…Apart from examining the association between sEBR and aid-induced effects on the parameters of stDDM, we also explored the association between stDDM parameters and pupil dilation during the decision task. Although pupil dilation was associated with reward anticipation and cognitive demands in our prior paper (Chen et al, 2021), there was no significant association between the stDDM parameters and pupil dilation in the present study. The details of this analysis can be found in the Supplementary Information section.…”

Section: Relations Between Aid-induced Effects On Performance and Stddm Parameterscontrasting

confidence: 83%

“…The interpretation of this change in the starting time advantage for probability between the decision-aid and control conditions in older adults is complicated by the fact that, on average, older adults did not take magnitude into consideration during control trials (i.e., the drift weight for magnitude was not different from zero; group mean = 0.02, 95% HDI = [-0.07, 0.11]). Thus, the timing of magnitude consideration within control decisions could be thought of as irrelevant because the magnitude would not influence the outcome, which may result in suboptimal choice performance observed in our prior study (Chen et al, 2021). However, we find that, at the individual level, older adults' relative starting time parameters are associated with the degree to which they benefit from the decisionaid manipulation.…”

Section: Effects Of Age Group and Condition On The Parameters Of Stddm Table 1 Reportsmentioning

confidence: 52%

“…Some studies have shown that the DA-related drugs affect sEBR (e.g., Blin et al, 1990;Cavanagh et al, 2014), but others reported no effects (e.g., Dang et al, 2017;Mohr et al, 2005;Sescousse et al, 2018). Our previous analyses of these data showed that older adults with a lower sEBR exhibited a larger decision-aid induced improvement in value sensitivity (Chen et al, 2021). Here, we tested for the relationships among the choice performance, sEBR, and individual differences in the aid-induced differences in the parameters of the stDDM, especially the attribute weighting parameters that influence value sensitivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…Previous studies have applied a color-coding scheme (e.g., green and red indicating information associated with gains or losses, respectively) as a decision-aid to increase the saliency of EVs (Samanez-Larkin et al, 2011) or the outcome probability (Chen et al, 2021;Samanez-Larkin et al, 2011). Results from these prior studies showed that the visual decision-aid improved older adults' choice behaviors and allowed them to make more rational choices that were more similar to the way younger adults behaved.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, questions about how age and information saliency of outcome probability may affect the dynamics of the decision-making process are still open. To address these questions, the present study fit a time-varying drift diffusion model (DDM) (Amasino et al, 2019;Maier et al, 2020) to the data from our prior study (Chen et al, 2021) to investigate the effects of age and enhancing information saliency of probability on the relative weightings and temporal dynamics of the two defining attributes, which are outcome probability and reward magnitude, of EV during value-based decision-making under conditions with or without the decision-aid in younger and older adults. Specifically, we used a time-varying DDM that includes starting time parameters (henceforth starting time DDM) that denote how quickly one attribute begins to affect the evidence accumulation process relative to another attribute.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A time-varying diffusion model analysis of age differences in value-based decisions: sooner processing but lesser weighting of reward probabilities in older adults

Chen¹,

Lombardi²,

S³

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Empirical evidence has shown that visually enhancing the saliency of reward probability information can ease the cognitive demands of value comparisons and improve value-based decision-making in old age. In the present study, we used a time-varying DDM that includes starting time parameters (henceforth starting time DDM, stDDM) to better understand how increasing the saliency of probability may affect the dynamics of value-based decision-making. We enhanced the saliency of reward probability by using a color-coding scheme as a decision-aid in a mixed lottery choice task, with which the decisions of younger and older adults were assessed. Older adults’ evidence accumulation processes were less sensitive to information about outcome probability and magnitude than those of younger adults. The decision-aid enhanced the weighting of probability and magnitude information in both age groups, as well as the starting time advantage for probability information relative to magnitude information. Older adults who had a lower baseline value sensitivity, as reflected in the parameters from non-aid trials, benefited more from increasing information saliency in improving decisions. Furthermore, in older adults, this aid-induced effect was related to individual’s spontaneous eye-blink rate, a potential proxy of dopamine functioning. Taken together, analyzing the behavioral data using the stDDM revealed new evidence for adult age differences during value-based decisions: not do only older adults weigh the outcome probability and magnitude less than younger adults, they also do not process information about probability sooner than magnitude. Visually enhancing the saliency of probability information can benefit older decision makers in shifting their decision dynamics to be more similar to younger adults.

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Section: Relations Between Aid-induced Effects On Performance and Stddm Parameterscontrasting

confidence: 83%

Section: Effects Of Age Group and Condition On The Parameters Of Stddm Table 1 Reportsmentioning

confidence: 52%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

A time-varying diffusion model analysis of age differences in value-based decisions: sooner processing but lesser weighting of reward probabilities in older adults

Chen¹,

Lombardi²,

S³

et al. 2021

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Incentive motivation improves numerosity discrimination in children and adolescents

Spliethoff

Dix

2022

Sci Rep

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We recently showed that incentive motivation improves the precision of the Approximate Number System (ANS) in young adults. To shed light on the development of incentive motivation, the present study investigated whether this effect and its underlying mechanisms may also be observed in younger samples. Specifically, seven-year-old children (n = 23; 12 girls) and 14-year-old adolescents (n = 30; 15 girls) performed a dot comparison task with monetary reward incentives. Both age groups showed higher accuracy in a reward compared to a neutral condition and, similarly, higher processing efficiency as revealed by the drift rate parameter of the EZ-diffusion model. Furthermore, in line with the Incentive Salience Hypothesis, phasic pupil dilations—indicating the activation of the brain’s salience network—were greater in incentivized trials in both age groups. Together these finding suggest that incentive modulation improves numerosity discrimination in children and adolescents by enhancing the perceptual saliency of numerosity information. However, the observed reward anticipation effects were less pronounced in children relative to adolescents. Furthermore, unlike previous findings regarding young adults, the decision thresholds of children and adolescents were not raised by the monetary reward, which may indicate a more protracted development of incentive regulation of response caution than perceptual evidence accumulation.

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Older adults process the probability of winning sooner but weigh it less during lottery decisions

Chen

Lombardi

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Empirical evidence has shown that visually enhancing the saliency of reward probabilities can ease the cognitive demands of value comparisons and improve value-based decisions in old age. In the present study, we used a time-varying drift diffusion model that includes starting time parameters to better understand (1) how increasing the saliency of reward probabilities may affect the dynamics of value-based decision-making and (2) how these effects may interact with age. We examined choices made by younger and older adults in a mixed lottery choice task. On a subset of trials, we used a color-coding scheme to highlight the saliency of reward probabilities, which served as a decision-aid. The results showed that, in control trials, older adults started to consider probability relative to magnitude information sooner than younger adults, but that their evidence accumulation processes were less sensitive to reward probabilities than that of younger adults. This may indicate a noisier and more stochastic information accumulation process during value-based decisions in old age. The decision-aid increased the influence of probability information on evidence accumulation rates in both age groups, but did not alter the relative timing of accumulation for probability versus magnitude in either group.

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Effects and mechanisms of information saliency in enhancing value-based decision-making in younger and older adults

Cited by 11 publications

References 94 publications

A time-varying diffusion model analysis of age differences in value-based decisions: sooner processing but lesser weighting of reward probabilities in older adults

A time-varying diffusion model analysis of age differences in value-based decisions: sooner processing but lesser weighting of reward probabilities in older adults

Incentive motivation improves numerosity discrimination in children and adolescents

Older adults process the probability of winning sooner but weigh it less during lottery decisions

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