Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York, USA.
J Neurophysiol. 2010 May;103(5):2513-31. doi: 10.1152/jn.00177.2009. Epub 2010 Feb 24.
Many decisions involve a trade-off between the quality of an outcome and the time at which that outcome is received. In psychology and behavioral economics, the most widely studied models hypothesize that the values of future gains decline as a roughly hyperbolic function of delay from the present. Recently, it has been proposed that this hyperbolic-like decline in value arises from the interaction of two separate neural systems: one specialized to value immediate rewards and the other specialized to value delayed rewards. Here we report behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging results that are inconsistent with both the standard behavioral models of discounting and the hypothesis that separate neural systems value immediate and delayed rewards. Behaviorally, we find that human subjects do not necessarily make the impulsive preference reversals predicted by hyperbolic-like discounting. We also find that blood oxygenation level dependent activity in ventral striatum, medial prefrontal, and posterior cingulate cortex does not track whether an immediate reward was present, as proposed by the separate neural systems hypothesis. Activity in these regions was correlated with the subjective value of both immediate and delayed rewards. Rather than encoding only the relative value of one reward compared with another, these values are represented on a more absolute scale. These data support an alternative behavioral-neural model (which we call "ASAP"), in which subjective value declines hyperbolically relative to the soonest currently available reward and a small number of valuation areas serve as a final common pathway through which these subjective values guide choice.
许多决策都涉及到结果的质量和获得该结果的时间之间的权衡。在心理学和行为经济学中,研究最广泛的模型假设未来收益的价值随着与当前的延迟呈大致双曲线函数下降。最近,有人提出这种价值的双曲线式下降是由两个独立的神经系统相互作用引起的:一个专门评估即时奖励的价值,另一个专门评估延迟奖励的价值。在这里,我们报告了与折扣的标准行为模型以及独立的神经系统评估即时和延迟奖励的假设不一致的行为和功能磁共振成像结果。在行为上,我们发现人类受试者并不一定会做出双曲线折扣所预测的冲动偏好逆转。我们还发现,腹侧纹状体、内侧前额叶和后扣带回皮层中的血氧水平依赖活动与独立的神经系统假设不一致,该假设认为即时奖励是否存在。这些区域的活动与即时和延迟奖励的主观价值都相关。这些价值不是仅编码为一个奖励与另一个奖励的相对价值,而是在更绝对的尺度上表示。这些数据支持一种替代的行为-神经模型(我们称之为“ASAP”),在该模型中,相对于当前最快可用的奖励,主观价值呈双曲线式下降,并且少数估值区域作为一个最终的共同途径,通过该途径,这些主观价值指导选择。