Wu Haiyan, Gui Danyang, Lin Wenzheng, Gu Ruolei, Zhu Xiangru, Liu Xun
Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Brain Cogn. 2016 Aug;107:16-23. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2016.06.005. Epub 2016 Jun 28.
Much past research has focused on the correlation between procrastination and personality traits (e.g., impulsivity). According to the temporal motivation theory, procrastinators are impulsive and sensitive to delays in time. However, there is still a lack of direct evidence of the tendency of procrastinators to prefer immediate over future rewards. To investigate this question, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in the brain while participants performed an intertemporal choice task involving both time delay and reward processing. The participants were assigned to a high procrastination group and a low procrastination group according to their scores on self-report measures. We found that high procrastination participants preferred immediate rewards compared to future ones whereas low procrastination participants did not. High procrastinators also exhibited a larger and delayed P2 component, indicating delay time processing and abnormal reward processing. No significant effect associated with procrastination was found on the P300 component. Taken together, these findings suggest that high procrastinators are more impulsive and encode the information of delay time more slowly but with a higher level of motivation-driven attention. The current study substantiates higher impulsivity in procrastination and verifies that a difference exists in the sensitivity to time delay between high and low procrastinators.
过去的许多研究都集中在拖延与人格特质（如冲动性）之间的关联上。根据时间动机理论，拖延者具有冲动性，且对时间延迟敏感。然而，仍然缺乏直接证据表明拖延者倾向于选择即时奖励而非未来奖励。为了研究这个问题，我们在参与者执行一项涉及时间延迟和奖励处理的跨期选择任务时，记录了他们大脑中的事件相关电位（ERP）。根据自我报告量表的得分，将参与者分为高拖延组和低拖延组。我们发现，与未来奖励相比，高拖延参与者更喜欢即时奖励，而低拖延参与者则不然。高拖延者还表现出更大且延迟的P2成分，表明延迟时间处理和异常的奖励处理。在P300成分上未发现与拖延相关的显著影响。综上所述，这些发现表明，高拖延者更冲动，对延迟时间信息的编码更慢，但具有更高水平的动机驱动注意力。当前的研究证实了拖延中更高的冲动性，并验证了高拖延者和低拖延者在对时间延迟的敏感性上存在差异。
