Many behavioral paradigms used to study individuals' decision making tendencies do not capture the decision components that contribute to behavioral outcomes, such as differentiating decisions driven toward a reward from decisions driven away from a cost. This study tested a novel decision making task in a sample of 403 children (age 9 years) enrolled in an ongoing longitudinal study. The task consisted of 3 blocks representing distinct cost domains (delay, probability, effort) wherein children were presented with a deck of cards, each of which consisted of a reward and a cost. Children elected whether to accept or skip the card at each trial. Reward-cost pairs were selected using an adaptive algorithm to strategically sample the decision space in the fewest number of trials. Using person-specific regression models, decision preferences were quantified for each cost domain with respect to general tolerance (intercept), as well as parameters estimating the effect of incremental increases in reward or cost on the probability of accepting a card. Results support the relative independence of decision making tendencies across cost domains, with moderate correlations observed between tolerance for delay and effort. Specific decision parameters showed unique associations with cognitive and behavioral measures including executive function, academic motivation, anxiety, and hyperactivity. Evidence indicates that sensitivity to reward is an important factor in incentivizing decisions to work harder or wait longer. Dissociating the relative contributions of reward and cost sensitivity in multiple domains may facilitate the identification of heterogeneity in sub-optimal decision making.

中文翻译：

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儿童在不同概率、努力和延迟领域的决策中对成本和奖励的敏感性

许多用于研究个人决策倾向的行为范式并没有捕捉到有助于行为结果的决策组成部分，例如区分推动奖励的决策和远离成本的决策。这项研究在一项正在进行的纵向研究中对 403 名儿童（9 岁）的样本进行了一项新的决策任务测试。该任务由代表不同成本域（延迟、概率、努力）的 3 个块组成，其中向孩子们展示了一副纸牌，每张纸牌都包含奖励和成本。孩子们在每次试验中选择是接受还是跳过卡片。使用自适应算法选择奖励成本对，以在最少的试验次数中对决策空间进行战略性采样。使用特定于个人的回归模型，每个成本域的决策偏好都被量化，包括一般容忍度（拦截），以及估计奖励或成本增量增加对接受卡片概率的影响的参数。结果支持跨成本领域的决策倾向的相对独立性，在延迟容忍度和努力之间观察到适度的相关性。特定的决策参数显示出与认知和行为测量的独特关联，包括执行功能、学业动机、焦虑和多动。有证据表明，对奖励的敏感性是激励做出更努力工作或等待更长时间的决定的重要因素。