AUTHOR=Cavanagh James F , Neville David , Cohen Michael X., Van de Vijver Irene , Harsay Helga A., Watson Andrea , Buitenweg Jessika I., Ridderinkhof K. Richard TITLE=Individual Differences in Risky Decision-Making Among Seniors Reflect Increased Reward Sensitivity JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroscience VOLUME=6 YEAR=2012 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroscience/articles/10.3389/fnins.2012.00111 DOI=10.3389/fnins.2012.00111 ISSN=1662-453X ABSTRACT=

Increasing age is associated with subtle but meaningful changes in decision-making. It is unknown, however, to what degree these psychological changes are reflective of age-related changes in decision quality. Here, we investigated the effect of age on latent cognitive processes associated with risky decision-making on the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART). In the BART, participants repetitively inflate a balloon in order to increase potential reward. At any point, participants can decide to cash-out to harvest the reward, or they can continue, risking a balloon pop that erases all earnings. We found that among seniors, increasing age was associated with greater reward-related risk taking when the balloon has a higher probability of popping (i.e., a “high risk” condition). Cognitive modeling results from hierarchical Bayesian estimation suggested that performance differences were due to increased reward sensitivity in high risk conditions in seniors.