Now for sure or later with a risk? Modeling risky intertemporal choice as accumulated preference.

Abstract

Research on risky and inter-temporal decision-making often focuses on descriptive models of choice. This class of models sometimes lack a psychological process account of how different cognitive processes give rise to choice behavior. Here, we attempt to decompose these processes using sequential accumulator modeling (i.e., the Linear Ballistic Accumulator model; LBA). Participants were presented with pairs of gambles that either involve different levels of probability or delay (Experiment 1) or a combination of these dimensions (both probability and delay; Experiment 2). Response times (RTs) were recorded as a measure of preferential strength. We then combined choice data and response times, and utilized variants of the LBA to explore different assumptions about how preferences are formed. Specifically we show that a model which allows for the subjective evaluation of a fixed now/certain option to change as a function of the delayed/risky option with which it is paired provides the best account of the combined choice and RT data. The work highlights the advantages of using cognitive process models in risky and inter-temporal choice, and points towards a common framework for understanding how people evaluate time and probability.

The More You Ask, the Less You Get: When Additional Questions Hurt External Validity

“…Although the current results do not suggest that individuals produced more random responses-the consistency in the repeated choices in Study 1 did not change with more questions asked (see Web Appendix B2)-we cannot rule out increasing random responses for other task designs. While our studies asked at most 32 questions, other studies ask many more questions, in the hundreds (e.g., Amasino et al 2019;Kable and Glimcher 2007;Kvam and Busemeyer 2020;Zhao et al 2019) or even thousands (e.g., Konstantinidis et al 2020;Nosofsky and Palmeri 1997). Indeed, studies in fields such as neuroscience often require at least 100 questions.…”

The Future of Decisions from Experience: Connecting Real-World Decision Problems to Cognitive Processes

“…Therefore, experimental research about decisions that involve outcomes that are both delayed and risky are in DfD paradigms (Konstantinidis et al, 2020;Luckman et al, 2017;Vanderveldt et al, 2015). Consequently, there is a lack of research to understand how people learn and adapt their behavior in situations where these delays are inherent (cf.…”

A systematic investigation into the reliability of inter-temporal choice model parameters

“…It is important to note that the analysis conducted here does not constitute an exhaustive assessment of all possible models of inter-temporal choice or methods for estimating their parameters. One class of models that we did not examine is dynamic accounts of inter-temporal choice, which are based on evidence accumulation models (see Dai & Busemeyer, 2014;Dai et al, 2018;Konstantinidis et al, 2018;Rodriguez, Turner, & McClure, 2014). These models describe the dynamic process by which preferences for the possible options evolve over time until preference for one option becomes strong enough that it is selected.…”