@article{ref1,
title="Individual optimization of risky decisions in duration and distance estimations",
journal="Attention, perception and psychophysics",
year="2020",
author="van der Mijn, Robbert and Damsma, Atser and Taatgen, Niels and van Rijn, Hedderik",
volume="ePub",
number="ePub",
pages="ePub-ePub",
abstract="Many everyday decisions require an accurate perception of how much time has passed since a previous event. Although humans estimate time intervals with a high degree  of mean accuracy, the precision of estimations varies greatly between individuals. In situations in which accurate timing is rewarded but responding too early is  punished, the optimal amount of risk is directly dependent on the precision of the  timer. Previously, it was found that humans and rodents displayed near-optimal  adjustment of their mean response time based on their individual precision and the  level of punishment. It is as of yet unknown whether these strategies of optimality  in interval timing are specific to the timing domain, or instead reflect an ability  that generalizes to other sensorimotor modalities of decision making. Here, we  address this by combining a temporal reproduction experiment and a distance  estimation experiment with an identical reward scheme. We found that participants  approached optimality in both tasks, but generally underadjusted their responses in  the face of high risk. As this individual adjustment was consistent over modalities,  these results can best be explained by assuming that the adjustment of behavior  towards optimal performance is driven by a modality independent mechanism.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1943-3921",
doi="10.3758/s13414-020-02225-6",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-020-02225-6"
}