Deciding when to “cash in” when outcomes are continuously improving: An escalating interest task

Abstract

A first-person shooter video game was adapted for the study of choice between smaller sooner and larger later outcomes. Participants chose when to fire a weapon that increased in damage potential over a 10 s interval, an escalating interest situation. Across two experiments, participants demonstrated sensitivity to the nature of the mathematical function that defined the relationship between waiting and damage potential. In Experiment 1, people tended to wait longer when doing so allowed them to eliminate targets more quickly. In Experiment 2, people tended to wait longer to increase the probability of a constant magnitude outcome than to increase the magnitude of a 100% certain outcome that was matched for the same expected value (i.e., probability times magnitude). The two experiments demonstrated sensitivity to the way in which an outcome improves when the outcome is continuously available. The results also demonstrate that this new video game task is useful for generating sensitivity to delay to reinforcement over time scales that are typically used in nonhuman animal studies.

Fostering the Sustainable use of Common-Pool Resources through Behavioral Interventions: an Experimental Approach

“…Future studies could focus on less verbal responses and interventions, by replacing the use of discrete rounds with verbal inputs (numbers from 1 to 9) through a free operant procedure, and the intervention messages by the differential reinforcement of some pattern of responses. Recent research has shown some progress with free operant data collection for social interaction tasks (Toledo et al, 2015), both for obtaining clearer learning curves and to avoid the instructional control and verbal mediation that arise from the experimental setting, which can overlap the effects of nonverbal contingencies on behavior (Young, Webb, & Jacobs, 2011).…”

“…Another aspect to be considered in future studies is the type of reinforcers used in the experiment (points exchanged for money), which implies motivational issues that constrain the homogeneity between participants. It is possible that naturalistic conditions are more accurately simulated if the points obtained by participants entail more or less likelihood of success during the game than simply resulting in greater financial gain after participation (see Young, Webb, & Jacobs, 2011 for an example of a videogame-based task with does not imply financial gains).…”

Monkeys Wait to Begin a Computer Task when Waiting Makes Their Responses More Effective

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Abstract -Rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) and capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) performed a computerized inhibitory control task modeled after an "escalating interest task" from a recent human study (Young, Webb, & Jacobs, 2011). In the original study, which utilized a first-person shooter game, human participants learned to inhibit firing their simulated weapon long enough for the weapon"s damage potential to grow in effectiveness (up to 10 seconds in duration).

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“…A recent study provided a novel approach to assessing human participants" capacity for inhibitory control in what was called a computerized "escalating interest task" (Young, Webb, & Jacobs, 2011). The task utilized a first-person shooter game in which the goal was to eliminate as many virtual enemies as possible using a simulated weapon.…”

“…Participants became sensitive to this pattern and learned to overcome the initial inclination to fire any time an enemy was visible, and instead, maximized their performance by delaying their weapon usage and thereby allowing for near-maximum damage with each use. Young et al (2011) developed this test (at least in part) to have a method that was more comparable to the tests used most often to assess nonhuman animal (hereafter, animal) inhibitory control, namely, delay discounting and delay of gratification tasks (Beran, 2002;Dufour, Pelé, Sterck, & Thierry, 2007;Tobin, Chelonis, & Logue, 1993). Delay discounting tasks involve instantaneous choices between a lesser, more immediate, reward and a greater, more delayed, reward (Berns et al, 2007), whereas delay of gratification tasks involve waiting for as long as possible to take a reward that is present so that one can instead obtain a greater reward (Mischel et al, 1989).…”