Frontiers in Neuroscience (Jul 2012)

Individual differences in risky decision-making among seniors reflect increased reward sensitivity

  • James F eCavanagh,
  • James F eCavanagh,
  • David eNeville,
  • Michael X Cohen,
  • Irene eVan de Vijver,
  • Helga A Harsay,
  • Andrea eWatson,
  • Jessika I V Buitenweg,
  • K. Richard eRidderinkhof,
  • K. Richard eRidderinkhof

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2012.00111
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 6

Abstract

Read online

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 Analogue 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 modeling results from hierarchical Bayesian estimation suggested that performance differences were due to increased reward sensitivity in high risk conditions in seniors.

Keywords