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- Title
Individual differences in risky decision-making among seniors reflect increased reward sensitivity.
- Authors
Cavanagh, James F.; Neville, David; Cohen, Michael X.; DeVijver, IreneVan; Harsay, Helga; Watson, Poppy; Buitenweg, Jessika I.; Richard Ridderinkhof, K.
- Abstract
Increasing age is associated with subtle but meaningful changes in decision-making. It is unknown, however, to what degree these psychological changes are reflective of age-related changes in decision quality. Here, we investigated the effect of age on latent cognitive processes associated with risky decision-making on the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). In the BART, participants repetitively inflate a balloon in order to increase potential reward. At any point, participants can decide to cash-out to harvest the reward, or they can continue, risking a balloon pop that erases all earnings.We found that among seniors, increasing age was associated with greater reward-related risk taking when the balloon has a higher probability of popping (i.e., a "high risk" condition). Cognitive model-ing results from hierarchical Bayesian estimation suggested that performance differences were due to increased reward sensitivity in high risk conditions in seniors
- Subjects
INDIVIDUAL differences; DECISION making; COGNITION; HUMAN behavior; NEUROSCIENCES
- Publication
Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2012, Vol 6, p1
- ISSN
1662-4548
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3389/fnins.2012.00111