Zamana bağlı ödül azamileştirme

Humans and animals time intervals from seconds-to-minutes with high accuracy but limited precision. Consequently, time-based decisions are inevitably subject to our endogenous timing uncertainty and thus require temporal risk assessment. Study 1 tested the temporal risk assessment ability of humans when participants had to withhold each subsequent response for a minimum duration to earn reward and each response reset the trial time. Premature responses were not penalized in the first group but were penalized (reward/2) in the second group. Participants tried to maximize reward within a fixed session time (over 8 sessions) by pressing a key. No instructions were provided regarding the task rules/parameters. Participants nearly tracked the optimal target inter-response times (IRTs) that changed as a function of the level of timing uncertainty and maximized the reward rate in both experiments. Acquisition of optimal target IRT was rapid and abrupt without any further improvement or worsening. In Study 2 the same behavioral paradigm is used except the penalty was equated to reward, and the minimum withhold duration was halved in the 4th session to measure the adaptation to a new schedule after reaching the steady state. Participants were given trait anxiety scale, Barratt impulsivity scale, behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation scale, and Padua inventory for obsessive compulsive disorder to evaluate the relation between the personality and task performance. Most of the participants were able to adapt to the change in the fourth session. Participants with high behavioral inhibition and high Padua scores are shown to be closer to optimality. These results support the use of non-instructed differential reinforcement of low rates of responding (DRL) as a valuable tool in temporal decision-making literature.