Work

Immediacy Versus Anticipated Delay in the Time-Left Experiment: A Test of the Cognitive Hypothesis.

Year: 2004

Type: article

Abstract: In the time-left experiment (J. Gibbon & R. M. Church, 1981), animals are said to compare an expectation of a fixed delay to food, for one choice, with a decreasing delay expectation for the other, mentally representing both upcoming time to food and the difference between current time and upcoming time (the cognitive hypothesis). The results of 2 experiments support a simpler view: that animals choose according to the immediacies of reinforcement for each response at a time signaled by available time markers (the temporal control hypothesis). It is not necessary to assume that animals can either represent or subtract representations of times to food to explain the results of the time-left experiment.

Source: Journal of Experimental Psychology Animal Behavior Processes

DOI: 10.1037/0097-7403.30.1.45

Authors: D. T. Cerutti, J. E. R. Staddon

Institution: Duke University

Language: English

Topic: Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics

Subfield: General Decision Sciences

Field: Decision Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health

Awards: Temporal Dynamics, G4406649935