Discounting of food, sex, and money.

Discounting is a useful framework for understanding choice involving a range of delayed and probabilistic outcomes (e.g., money, food, drugs), but relatively few studies have examined how people discount other commodities (e.

Pramipexole-induced disruption of behavioral processes fundamental to intertemporal choice.

Evaluating the effects of presession drug administration on intertemporal choice in nonhumans is a useful approach for identifying compounds that promote impulsive behavior in clinical populations, such as those prescribed the dopamine agonist pramipexole (PPX). Based on the results of previous studies, it is unclear whether PPX increases rats' impulsive choice or attenuates aspects of stimulus control. The present study was designed to experimentally isolate behavioral processes fundamental to intertemporal choice and challenge them pharmacologically with PPX administration.

Test-retest reliability and construct validity of the Experiential Discounting Task.

Delay discounting (the devaluation of delayed rewards) has been studied extensively using animal models with psychophysical adjustment procedures. Similar procedures have been developed to assess delay discounting in humans and these procedures most often use hypothetical rewards and delays. The Experiential Discounting Task (EDT) was developed to assess human delay discounting using real rewards and delays.

Early and prolonged exposure to reward delay: effects on impulsive choice and alcohol self-administration in male rats.

Naturally occurring impulsive choice has been found to positively predict alcohol consumption in rats. However, the extent to which experimental manipulation of impulsive choice may modify alcohol consumption remains unclear. In the present study, we sought to: (a) train low levels of impulsive choice in rats using early, prolonged exposure to reward delay, and (b) determine the effects of this manipulation on subsequent alcohol consumption.

Effects of reward bundling on male rats' preference for larger-later food rewards.

In both humans and nonhumans, prior research demonstrates increased preference for larger-later over smaller-sooner rewards when rewards are bundled together in a series (i.e., when an operant choice produces multiple discrete reward deliveries, as opposed to only a single delivery).

Incentivizing children's fruit and vegetable consumption: results of a United States pilot study of the Food Dudes Program.

Objective: Preliminary evaluation in the United States (US) of a school-based fruit and vegetable (F/V) intervention, known as the Food Dudes (FD) program, developed in the United Kingdom.

Methods: Over 16 days (Phase 1), elementary-school children (n = 253) watched short videos featuring heroic peers (the FD) eating F/V and received a reward for eating F/V served at lunchtime. In the 3 months that followed (Phase 2), children received increasingly intermittent rewards for eating F/V.