scholarly journals A time-varying diffusion model analysis of value-based decision-making: effects of adult age and probability information saliency

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hsiang-Yu Chen ◽  
Gaia Lombardi ◽  
Shu-Chen Li ◽  
Todd Hare
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Aid ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Starting Time ◽  
Reward Probability ◽  
Probability Information ◽  
Outcome Probability

Empirical evidence has shown that visually enhancing the saliency of reward probability information can ease the cognitive demands of value comparisons and improve value-based decision-making in old age. In the present study, we used a time-varying DDM that includes starting time parameters (henceforth starting time DDM, stDDM) to better understand how increasing the saliency of probability may affect the dynamics of value-based decision-making. We enhanced the saliency of reward probability by using a color-coding scheme as a decision-aid in a mixed lottery choice task, with which the decisions of younger and older adults were assessed. Older adults’ evidence accumulation processes were less sensitive to information about outcome probability and magnitude than those of younger adults. The decision-aid enhanced the weighting of probability and magnitude information in both age groups, as well as the starting time advantage for probability information relative to magnitude information. Older adults who had a lower baseline value sensitivity, as reflected in the parameters from non-aid trials, benefited more from increasing information saliency in improving decisions. Furthermore, in older adults, this aid-induced effect was related to individual’s spontaneous eye-blink rate, a potential proxy of dopamine functioning. Taken together, analyzing the behavioral data using the stDDM revealed new evidence for adult age differences during value-based decisions: not do only older adults weigh the outcome probability and magnitude less than younger adults, they also do not process information about probability sooner than magnitude. Visually enhancing the saliency of probability information can benefit older decision makers in shifting their decision dynamics to be more similar to younger adults.

Age-Related Differences in Motivational Integration and Cognitive Control

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debbie Marianne Yee ◽  
Sarah L Adams ◽  
Asad Beck ◽  
Todd Samuel Braver
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Cognitive Control ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Cognitive Task ◽  
Monetary Reward ◽  
Potential Candidate ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Cognitive Task Performance

Motivational incentives play an influential role in value-based decision-making and cognitive control. A compelling hypothesis in the literature suggests that the brain integrates the motivational value of diverse incentives (e.g., motivational integration) into a common currency value signal that influences decision-making and behavior. To investigate whether motivational integration processes change during healthy aging, we tested older (N=44) and younger (N=54) adults in an innovative incentive integration task paradigm that establishes dissociable and additive effects of liquid (e.g., juice, neutral, saltwater) and monetary incentives on cognitive task performance. The results reveal that motivational incentives improve cognitive task performance in both older and younger adults, providing novel evidence demonstrating that age-related cognitive control deficits can be ameliorated with sufficient incentive motivation. Additional analyses revealed clear age-related differences in motivational integration. Younger adult task performance was modulated by both monetary and liquid incentives, whereas monetary reward effects were more gradual in older adults and more strongly impacted by trial-by-trial performance feedback. A surprising discovery was that older adults shifted attention from liquid valence toward monetary reward throughout task performance, but younger adults shifted attention from monetary reward toward integrating both monetary reward and liquid valence by the end of the task, suggesting differential strategic utilization of incentives. Together these data suggest that older adults may have impairments in incentive integration, and employ different motivational strategies to improve cognitive task performance. The findings suggest potential candidate neural mechanisms that may serve as the locus of age-related change, providing targets for future cognitive neuroscience investigations.

scholarly journals Age Differences in Executive Control Assessed with a Robotic Object Hit and Avoid Test of Rapid Motor Decision Making

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 881-882
Author(s):  
Alexandra Watral ◽  
Kevin Trewartha
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Executive Functioning ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Executive Control ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Cognitive Status ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Neuropsychological Tasks ◽  
Measures Of Performance

Abstract Motor decision-making processes are required for many standard neuropsychological tasks, including the Trail Making Test (TMT), that aim to assess cognitive functioning in older adults. However, in their standard formats, it is difficult to isolate the relative contributions of sensorimotor and cognitive processes to performance on these neuropsychological tasks. Recently developed clinical tasks use a robotic manipulandum to assess both motor and cognitive aspects of rapid motor decision making in an object hit (OH) and object hit and avoid (OHA) task. We administered the OH and OHA tasks to 77 healthy younger adults and 59 healthy older adults to assess age differences in the motor and cognitive measures of performance. We administered the TMT parts A and B to assess the extent to which OHA performance is associated with executive functioning in particular. The results indicate that after controlling for hand speed, older adults performed worse on the OH and OHA tasks than younger adults, performance declines were far greater in the OHA task, and the global performance measures, which have been associated with cognitive status, were more sensitive to age differences than motor measures of performance. Those global measures of performance were also associated with measures of executive functioning on the TMT task. These findings provide evidence that rapid motor decision making tasks are sensitive to declines in executive control in aging. They also provide a way to isolate cognitive declines from declines in sensorimotor processes that are likely a contributing factor to age differences in neuropsychological test performance.

scholarly journals Adult age differences in subjective responses to dynamic socioemotional incentives

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sade J Abiodun ◽  
Galen McAllister ◽  
Gregory Russell Samanez-Larkin ◽  
Kendra Leigh Seaman
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Incentive Motivation ◽  
Social Signals ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Positivity Effect ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Adult Age Differences

Facial expressions are powerful communicative social signals that motivate feelings and action in the observer. However, research on incentive motivation has overwhelmingly focused on money and points and the limited research on social incentives has been mostly focused on responses in young adulthood. Previous research on the age-related positivity effect and adult age differences in social motivation suggest that older adults might experience higher levels of positive arousal to socioemotional stimuli than younger adults. Affect ratings following dynamic emotional expressions (anger, happiness, sadness) varying in magnitude of expression showed that higher magnitude expressions elicited higher arousal and valence ratings. Older adults did not differ significantly in levels of arousal when compared to younger adults, however their ratings of emotional valence were significantly higher as the magnitude of expressions increased. The findings provide novel evidence that socioemotional incentives may be relatively more reinforcing as adults age. More generally, these dynamic socioemotional stimuli that vary in magnitude are ideal for future studies of more naturalistic affect elicitation, studies of social incentive processing, and use in incentive-driven choice tasks.

The Context of Caution: An Examination of Age, Social Context, and Sex on Measures of Inhibitory Control and Risky Decision-Making

2019 ◽  
Vol 90 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raquel A. Cowell ◽  
Elizabeth R. Paitel ◽  
Sierra Peters
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Inhibitory Control ◽  
Flanker Task ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
Risky Decision ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Attentional Processes ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Comparable Accuracy

Understanding how older adults successfully navigate complex choices like driving requires the consideration of processing speed, inhibitory control, attentional processes, and risk management, and the context within which these decisions occur. The current study employed the Flanker task, the Stoplight task, and a personality inventory with 43 younger adults and 49 older adults either while they were alone or being observed by two same-sex, similarly aged peers. On the Flanker task, older adults performed more slowly, but with comparable accuracy. On the Stoplight task, there was a significant main effect of Context, and an Age-Group by Sex interaction, even after controlling for response time: All groups had a greater number of crashes when alone, and young adult males had significantly more crashes than any other group. These results emphasize the importance of considering the broader context of decision-making.

scholarly journals With Age Comes Wisdom

2011 ◽  
Vol 22 (11) ◽  
pp. 1375-1380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darrell A. Worthy ◽  
Marissa A. Gorlick ◽  
Jennifer L. Pacheco ◽  
David M. Schnyer ◽  
W. Todd Maddox
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Fundamental Difference ◽  
Behavioral Changes ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Independent Task ◽  
The Stability ◽  
The Way

In two experiments, younger and older adults performed decision-making tasks in which reward values available were either independent of or dependent on the previous sequence of choices made. The choice-independent task involved learning and exploiting the options that gave the highest rewards on each trial. In this task, the stability of the expected reward for each option was not influenced by the previous choices participants made. The choice-dependent task involved learning how each choice influenced future rewards for two options and making the best decisions based on that knowledge. Younger adults performed better when rewards were independent of choice, whereas older adults performed better when rewards were dependent on choice. These findings suggest a fundamental difference in the way in which younger adults and older adults approach decision-making situations. We discuss the results in the context of prominent decision-making theories and offer possible explanations based on neurobiological and behavioral changes associated with aging.

Reliance on Automation as a Function of Expectation of Reliability, Cost of Verification, and Age

2007 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neta Ezer ◽  
Arthur D. Fisk ◽  
Wendy A. Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Negative Correlation ◽  
Decision Aid ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Initial Expectation ◽  
The Cost

The influence of trust on automation reliance has been examined during interaction with the automation, but little attention has been paid to individuals' initial expectation of automation reliability as it affects future reliance, especially when the cost of not relying on automation is known in advance. Additionally, whereas automation may help to improve the lives of older adults, their expectations of automation reliability have not been thoroughly considered. In this study, 16 older adults and 16 younger adults were asked about their expectation of the reliability of an automated counting aid and half were told that they would lose points for verifying the automation. Subsequent reliance on the decision aid was recorded. The results indicated that neither age nor the cost of verification appears to have an effect on reliability expectancy. Furthermore, predictions of reliability had a negative correlation to reliance. The findings suggest that individuals develop expectations of automation over the course of experience and interaction with automation.

scholarly journals Mental Health and Social Connectedness Across the Adult Lifespan in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Madeline A. Gregory ◽  
Nicole K. Legg ◽  
Zachary Senay ◽  
Jamie-Lee Barden ◽  
Peter Phiri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Support ◽  
Older Adults ◽  
Social Connectedness ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Health Impacts ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Younger Adults ◽  
Adult Age

Abstract The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has had profound consequences on collective mental health and well-being, and yet, older adults appear better off than younger adults. The current study examined mental health impacts of the pandemic across adult age groups in a large sample (n = 5,320) of Canadians using multiple hierarchical regression analyses. Results suggest older adults are experiencing better mental health and more social connectedness relative to younger adults. Loneliness predicted negative mental health outcomes across all age groups, while the negative association between social support and mental health was only significant at average and high levels of loneliness in the 65–69 age group. Results point towards differential mental health impacts of the pandemic across adult age groups and indicate that loneliness and social support may be key intervention targets during the COVID-19 pandemic. Future research should further examine mechanisms of resiliency among older Canadian adults during the pandemic.

scholarly journals Human aging alters Bayesian social inference about others’ changing intentions

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea M.F. Reiter ◽  
Andreea Oliviana Diaconescu ◽  
Ben Eppinger ◽  
Shu-Chen Li
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Age Differences ◽  
Time Varying ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Bayesian Modelling ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Social Inference ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Social Uncertainty

Decoding others’ intentions accurately in order to adapt one’s own behavior is pivotal throughout life. Yet, it is a process that is imbued with uncertainty since others’ intentions are not directly observable and may change over time. In this study, we asked the question of how younger and older adults deal with uncertainty in dynamic social environments. We used an advice-taking paradigm together with biologically plausible hierarchical Bayesian modelling to characterize effects and mechanisms of aging on learning about others’ time-varying intentions. We observed age differences when comparing learning on two levels of social uncertainty: the fidelity of the adviser and the stability of intentions. We found that, prior to having any experience with the adviser, older adults expected the adviser to change his/her intentions more frequently. They also showed higher confidence in such beliefs and were less willing to change their beliefs over the course of the experiment. This led them to update their predictions about observable outcomes (i.e., advice correctness) more quickly. Potentially indicative of stereotype effects, we also observed that older advisers were perceived as more volatile, but at the same time, more faithful than younger advisers. Together these findings offer new insights into the behavioral and algorithmic mechanisms underlying adult age differences in response to social uncertainty, putatively driven by aging-related changes in neuromodulation to be tested in future studies.

scholarly journals Development and Field Testing of a Long-Term Care Decision Aid Website for Older Adults: Engaging Patients and Caregivers in User-Centered Design

2019 ◽  
Vol 60 (5) ◽  
pp. 935-946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aubri S Hoffman ◽  
Daniel R Bateman ◽  
Craig Ganoe ◽  
Sukdith Punjasthitkul ◽  
Amar K Das ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Decision Aid ◽  
Long Term Care ◽  
Action Plan ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Field Testing ◽  
Decisional Conflict ◽  
Term Care

Abstract Background and Objectives Decisions about long-term care and financing can be difficult to comprehend, consider, and communicate. In a previous needs assessment, families in rural areas requested a patient-facing website; however, questions arose about the acceptability of an online tool for older adults. This study engaged older adults and family caregivers in (a) designing and refining an interactive, tailored decision aid website, and (b) field testing its utility, feasibility, and acceptability. Research Design and Methods Based on formative work, the research team engaged families in designing and iteratively revising paper drafts, then programmed a tailored website. The field test used the ThinkAloud approach and pre-/postquestionnaires to assess participants’ knowledge, decisional conflict, usage, and acceptability ratings. Results Forty-five older adults, family members, and stakeholders codesigned and tested the decision aid, yielding four decision-making steps: Get the Facts, What Matters Most, Consider Your Resources, and Make an Action Plan. User-based design and iterative storyboarding enhanced the content, personal decision-making activities, and user-generated resources. Field-testing participants scored 83.3% correct on knowledge items and reported moderate/low decisional conflict. All (100%) were able to use the website, spent an average of 26.3 min, and provided an average 87.5% acceptability rating. Discussion and Implications A decision aid website can educate and support older adults and their family members in beginning a long-term care plan. Codesign and in-depth interviews improved usability, and lessons learned may guide the development of other aging decision aid websites.

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