Spatial discounting is a largely underexplored area of decision-making research, both theoretically and empirically, especially when compared to intertemporal choice, which has received significant attention in psychology and animal behaviour. Spatial decision problems seem to share some of the same features of a temporal decision problem (namely, the risk of reward objects disappearing and the opportunity cost of waiting), but there are several additional factors that affect the appropriate discount function for distant rewards. These include more significant opportunity costs, changes in the distances to all the other available opportunities, the post-reward costs of getting back home, the complex energetics associated with locomotion and all the additional risks faced by travelling itself. This paper organises and explores these factors and suggests some normative models that should predict the adaptive behaviour of animals and humans.

从理论上和经验上，空间折现是决策研究的一个主要未开发的领域，尤其是与跨时选择相比时，跨时选择在心理学和动物行为方面受到了极大的关注。空间决策问题似乎具有时间决策问题的某些相同特征（即，奖励对象消失的风险和等待的机会成本），但是还有其他一些因素会影响适当的远距离奖励的折现函数。这些包括更大的机会成本，与所有其他可用机会的距离变化，回国后的报酬成本，与运动相关的复杂精力以及旅行本身面临的所有其他风险。