Within-subject comparison of real and hypothetical money rewards in delay discounting.

Full Abstract

A within-subject design, using human participants, compared delay discounting functions for real and hypothetical money rewards. Both real and hypothetical rewards were studied across a range that included $10 to $250. For 5 of the 6 participants, no systematic difference in discount rate was observed in response to real and hypothetical choices, suggesting that hypothetical rewards may often serve as a valid proxy for real rewards in delay discounting research. By measuring discounting at an unprecedented range of real rewards, this study has also systematically replicated the robust finding in human delay discounting research that discount rates decrease with increasing magnitude of reward. A hyperbolic decay model described the data better than an exponential model.

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Author information

Author/s: Johnson, Matthe W (MW); Bickel, Warren K (WK);

Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vermont, Burlington 05401-1419, USA. matthew.johnson@uvm.edu

Grants: R01 DA 11692 (Agency:United States NIDA) ; T32 DA07242 (Agency:United States NIDA)

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Journal: Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior (J Exp Anal Behav), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Mar; vol 77 (issue 2) : pp 129-46

Dates: Created 2002/04/08; Completed 2002/10/21; Revised 2007/11/14;

PMID: 11936247, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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