Simulating future rewards: exploring the impacts of implicit context association and arithmetic booster in delay discounting

Abstract

People have higher preference for immediate over delayed rewards, and it is suggested that such an impulsive tendency is governed by one's ability to simulate future rewards. Consistent with this view, recent studies have shown that enforcing individuals to focus on episodic future thoughts reduces their impulsivity. Yet, given its multifaceted cognitive processes involved in future thinking, it is not well understood how episodic future thinking functions as an effective tool for modulating individuals' preference for immediate (or delayed) rewards. To examine plausible mechanisms that are linked with future thinking, we used one associative memory task and one working memory task that each of which were administered to manipulate acquired amount of information and individuals' ability to construct a coherent future event, respectively. Comparing with the impacts of three control tasks, we found that individuals' impulsivity was significantly reduced as an effect of arithmetic working memory task, but not of associative memory task. Moreover, this impulsivity reduction was most pronounced in individuals who showed highest working memory training performance. These data provide a mechanistic account of how episodic future thinking affects individuals' subjective valuation of delayed rewards.