title: Individual differences in risky decision-making among seniors reflect increased reward sensitivity.
abstract: 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 Analog 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.
authors: Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological Sciences, Brown University Providence, RI, USA.
authors: James F
authors: JF
authors: Cavanagh
authors: David
authors: D
authors: Neville
authors: Michael X
authors: MX
authors: Cohen
authors: Irene
authors: I
authors: Van de Vijver
authors: Helga
authors: H
authors: Harsay
authors: Poppy
authors: P
authors: Watson
authors: Jessika I
authors: JI
authors: Buitenweg
authors: K Richard
authors: KR
authors: Ridderinkhof