Odum Amy L., Rainaud Carla P.
Conant Hall, 10 Library Way, University of New Hampshire, 03824, Durham, NH, USA
Behav Processes. 2003 Oct 31;64(3):305-313. doi: 10.1016/s0376-6357(03)00145-1.
For drug-dependent individuals, drugs of abuse that are delayed in time are discounted more steeply than money delayed in time in a hypothetical choice task. The reasons for this finding are not clear. This study examined whether steep discounting of drugs relative to money might be related to the function of drugs as primary/consumable reinforcers and money as a conditioned/non-consumable reinforcer. Twenty adults with no self-reported problems with money, alcohol, or food participated. They indicated their preferences for three hypothetical outcome types: delayed versus immediate money, delayed versus immediate food, and delayed versus immediate alcohol. Both the hyperbolic decay model and area under the curve analysis showed that money was discounted less steeply than alcohol or food, but that alcohol and food were discounted similarly. This finding replicates previous results showing that people without drug abuse problems show steep discounting of alcohol. Furthermore, this finding suggests that alcohol may be steeply discounted as part of a general process involving primary/consumable reinforcers, not necessarily because it is a drug.
在一项假设选择任务中，对于药物依赖个体而言，延迟出现的滥用药物的折扣比延迟出现的金钱的折扣更为陡峭。这一发现的原因尚不清楚。本研究考察了相对于金钱而言，药物的陡峭折扣是否可能与药物作为主要/可消耗强化物以及金钱作为条件/不可消耗强化物的功能有关。二十名未自我报告有金钱、酒精或食物问题的成年人参与了研究。他们表明了对三种假设结果类型的偏好：延迟与即时金钱、延迟与即时食物、延迟与即时酒精。双曲线衰减模型和曲线下面积分析均表明，金钱的折扣不如酒精或食物陡峭，但酒精和食物的折扣相似。这一发现重复了之前的结果，即没有药物滥用问题的人对酒精表现出陡峭的折扣。此外，这一发现表明，酒精可能作为涉及主要/可消耗强化物的一般过程的一部分而被陡峭折扣，不一定是因为它是一种药物。
