Rats exhibit similar biases in foraging and intertemporal choice tasks
Author
Kane, Gary ABornstein, Aaron M
Shenhav, Amitai
Wilson, Robert C
Daw, Nathaniel D
Cohen, Jonathan D
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Dept Psychol, Cognit Sci ProgramIssue Date
2019-09-18Keywords
computational biologyforaging
intertemporal choice
neuroscience
rat
systems biology
temporal discounting
Metadata
Show full item recordPublisher
ELIFE SCIENCES PUBLICATIONS LTDCitation
eLife 2019;8:e48429 doi: 10.7554/eLife.48429Journal
ELIFERights
Copyright © 2019, Kane et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
Animals, including humans, consistently exhibit myopia in two different contexts: foraging, in which they harvest locally beyond what is predicted by optimal foraging theory, and intertemporal choice, in which they exhibit a preference for immediate vs. delayed rewards beyond what is predicted by rational (exponential) discounting. Despite the similarity in behavior between these two contexts, previous efforts to reconcile these observations in terms of a consistent pattern of time preferences have failed. Here, via extensive behavioral testing and quantitative modeling, we show that rats exhibit similar time preferences in both contexts: they prefer immediate vs. delayed rewards and they are sensitive to opportunity costs of delays to future decisions. Further, a quasi-hyperbolic discounting model, a form of hyperbolic discounting with separate components for short- and long-term rewards, explains individual rats’ time preferences across both contexts, providing evidence for a common mechanism for myopic behavior in foraging and intertemporal choice.Note
Open access journalISSN
2050-084XPubMed ID
31532391Version
Final published versionSponsors
United States Department of Health & Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH) - USA NIH National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) [F31MH109286]ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.7554/eLife.48429
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright © 2019, Kane et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
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