Wolpe Noham, Scott Daniel N, Salomon Mordechai L, Nassar Matthew R, Fletcher Paul C, Fernandez-Egea Emilio
Department of Physical Therapy, Stanley Steyer School of Health Professions, Gray Faculty of Medical & Health Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
Sagol School of Neuroscience, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.
NPJ Aging. 2025 May 30;11(1):46. doi: 10.1038/s41514-025-00240-1.
People constantly decide how much time to invest in rewarding activities. Foraging tasks assess this decision-making by measuring when individuals switch between contexts. People typically perform suboptimally in these tasks, largely due to overstaying, but it remains unclear whether this tendency changes with age independently of cognitive abilities and mental health factors. Previous research showing increased sensitivity to the opportunity cost of time in older adults predicts less overstaying, whereas a hypothesised shift towards exploitative behaviour predicts more overstaying. In an online foraging task, 350 young and older adults decided when to switch between contexts with varying reward conditions. We also assessed cognitive performance and self-reported motivation and depression. Participants consistently overstayed, and this behaviour was strongly associated with sensitivity to reward changes. Despite this, older adults selectively overstayed more without increased reward-based adaptation. Our findings show ageing is associated with exaggerated overstaying, supporting increased exploitative behaviour in old age.
人们不断地决定投入多少时间到有回报的活动中。觅食任务通过测量个体在不同情境之间切换的时间来评估这种决策。人们在这些任务中的表现通常不理想，主要是因为停留时间过长，但目前尚不清楚这种倾向是否会随着年龄的增长而独立于认知能力和心理健康因素发生变化。先前的研究表明，老年人对时间机会成本的敏感性增加预示着停留时间会减少，而假设的向剥削行为的转变则预示着停留时间会增加。在一项在线觅食任务中，350名年轻人和老年人决定何时在具有不同奖励条件的情境之间切换。我们还评估了认知表现、自我报告的动机和抑郁情况。参与者持续停留时间过长，这种行为与对奖励变化的敏感性密切相关。尽管如此，老年人在没有增加基于奖励的适应性的情况下，选择性地停留时间更长。我们的研究结果表明，衰老与过度停留的加剧有关，支持了老年期剥削行为增加的观点。
