Department of Psychology, Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209, USA.
Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2011 Aug;19(4):263-74. doi: 10.1037/a0024141.
Discounting is a behavioral phenomenon in which the value of an outcome diminishes as a function of its increased delay or decreased probability and is related to substance abuse research because of its theoretical ties with behavioral models of impulsive choice. Research to date suggests that hypothetical outcomes used in discounting research yield data that are indistinguishable from those using potentially real outcomes. However, the extant literature focuses primarily on delay discounting in non-drug-using humans and has not examined whether hypothetical outcomes yield disproportionate numbers of nonsystematic response patterns. In two experiments, we compared hypothetical and potentially real monetary outcomes in delay and probability discounting tasks in terms of rates of discounting and the frequency of nonsystematic response patterns. In Experiment 1, 61 adults reported no smoking, binge drinking, or illicit drug use in the past year. Experiment 2 included a community sample of nicotine-dependent adults (N = 36). In both experiments, discounting for hypothetical and potentially real outcomes yielded similar data, replicating and extending a growing literature pointing to the empirical equivalence of these outcomes. These findings are relevant to research on discounting that is frequently used in the study of substance use and other impulse-control behaviors.
折扣是一种行为现象，即结果的价值随着其延迟的增加或概率的降低而减少，并且由于与冲动选择的行为模型的理论联系，与物质滥用研究有关。迄今为止的研究表明，在折扣研究中使用的假设结果产生的数据与使用潜在真实结果的数据无法区分。然而，现有文献主要集中在非吸毒人群的延迟折扣上，并且尚未研究假设结果是否会产生不成比例的非系统反应模式。在两项实验中，我们比较了延迟和概率折扣任务中假设和潜在真实货币结果之间的折扣率和非系统反应模式的频率。在实验 1 中，61 名成年人报告在过去一年中没有吸烟、狂饮或使用非法药物。实验 2 包括尼古丁依赖的成年人的社区样本（N = 36）。在这两项实验中，假设和潜在真实结果的折扣产生了类似的数据，复制和扩展了越来越多的文献，指出这些结果在经验上是等同的。这些发现与折扣研究有关，折扣研究经常用于研究物质使用和其他冲动控制行为。
