The present study demonstrated the relative impact of gambling and nongambling contexts on the degree of delay discounting by pathological gamblers. We used a delay-discounting task with 20 pathological gamblers in and out of the natural context in which they regularly gambled. For 16 of the 20 participants, it appeared that the difference of context altered the subjective value of delayed rewards, thereby producing relative changes in delay-discounting rates that were generally consistent with a hyperbolic model of intertemporal choice. The current data suggest that empirically derived k values from delay-discounting tasks are context sensitive and are not constant across various settings for the individual. Implications for future transitional research on addictive disorders generally, and gambling specifically, are discussed.

The present paper describes two studies in which participants with and without acquired brain injuries were compared on a temporal discounting task involving various hypothetical amounts of money available at varying delay values. During Experiment 1, both groups of participants were presented with choices between amounts of money ranging from 1 to 1000 US dollars at delays from 1 week to 10 years. The results obtained from this procedure were consistent with previous models of temporal delay discounting for control group participants, yet not for the majority of the participants with acquired brain injuries. During Experiment 2, adjustments in hypothetical amounts and delays were made whereby the amounts of money ranged from 1 to 20 US dollars at delays from 1 day to 1 year. These manipulations yielded data generally consistent with temporal delay discounting models previously reported in the published literature. The utility of using delay discounting procedures as a means of assessing impulsivity in persons with acquired brain injuries is presented.