Medial Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Intertemporal Choice

Mitchell, James; Schirmer, Jessica; Ames, Daniel R.; Gilbert, Daniel T.

doi:10.1162/jocn.2010.21479

Cited by 115 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…What this suggests is that when self-relevant episodes are simulated from a thirdperson vantage point (e.g., distant-future events), the imagined version of the self may be stripped of the experiential components that produce the corporeal feeling of personal identity, hence blurring the boundary between the self and others (Hershfield, 2011;Mitchell, Schirmer, Ames, & Gilbert, 2011;Pronin & Ross, 2006). In this way, shifts in vantage point have important implications for the temporal continuity of self.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Turning I into me: Imagining your future self

Macrae

Mitchell

Tait

et al. 2015

Consciousness and Cognition

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A widely endorsed belief is that perceivers imagine their present selves using a different representational format than imagining their future selves (i.e., near future=first-person; distant future=third-person). But is this really the case? Responding to the paucity of work on this topic, here we considered how temporal distance influences the extent to which individuals direct their attention outward or inward during a brief imaginary episode. Using a non-verbal measure of visual perspective taking (i.e., letter-drawing task) our results confirmed the hypothesized relation between temporal distance and conceptions of the self. Whereas simulations of an event in the near future were dominated by a first-person representation of the self, this switched to a third-person depiction when the event was located in the distant future. Critically, this switch in vantage point was restricted to self-related simulations. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are considered.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Turning I into me: Imagining your future self

Macrae

Mitchell

Tait

et al. 2015

Consciousness and Cognition

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“…Hariri et al (2006) have shown that higher discounters exhibit a greater VS response to unpredicted rewards. Others have shown that higher discounters exhibit a greater difference in BOLD activity between judgments of oneself in the present compared with the future (Ersner-Hershfield et al, 2009;Mitchell et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain Activity in Valuation Regions while Thinking about the Future Predicts Individual Discount Rates

Cooper¹,

Kable²,

Kim

et al. 2013

Journal of Neuroscience

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People vary widely in how much they discount delayed rewards, yet little is known about the sources of these differences. Here we demonstrate that neural activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and ventral striatum (VS) when human subjects are asked to merely think about the future-specifically, to judge the subjective length of future time intervals-predicts delay discounting. High discounters showed lower activity for longer time delays, while low discounters showed the opposite pattern. Our results demonstrate that the correlation between VMPFC and VS activity and discounting occurs even in the absence of choices about future rewards, and does not depend on a person explicitly evaluating future outcomes or judging their self-relevance. This suggests a link between discounting and basic processes involved in thinking about the future, such as temporal perception. Our results also suggest that reducing impatience requires not suppression of VMPFC and VS activity altogether, but rather modulation of how these regions respond to the present versus the future.

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“…For example, Bartels and Rips (2010) found that changes in perceived connectedness across time mirror changes in patience over time. Ersner-Hershfield et al (2009a) and Mitchell et al (2010) showed that neural correlates of connectedness correlate with discounting.…”

Section: Diachronic Identity and The Persistence Of Individual Personsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Choice and self: how synchronic and diachronic identity shape choices and decision making

et al. 2014

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Research on the role of identity in choice varies widely across fields like psychology, philosophy, consumer behavior, and economics, in both the key questions addressed and the methods of investigation. Although a large literature has established how salient aspects of identity affect attitudes and norms, less is known about how beliefs concerning identity are shaped and how these beliefs affect decision making. In this review, we cover recent insights into these issues and summarize some newer, developing approaches to understanding (i) how people judge the persistence of identity, (ii) how beliefs about future changes in identity are formed and how they affect choices, (iii) the formation of beliefs about future changes in identity and how these beliefs affect decisions, and (iv) the historical and economic antecedents of identity norms and their consequences for economic behavior. We introduce a distinction between synchronic and diachronic approaches, and highlight important

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Medial Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Intertemporal Choice

Cited by 115 publications

References 59 publications

Turning I into me: Imagining your future self

Turning I into me: Imagining your future self

Brain Activity in Valuation Regions while Thinking about the Future Predicts Individual Discount Rates

Choice and self: how synchronic and diachronic identity shape choices and decision making

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