Aging and loss decision making increased risk aversion and decreased use of maximizing information, with correlated rationality and value maximization

ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 13 May 2015 doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00280 Aging and loss decision making: increased risk aversion and decreased use of maximizing information, with correlated rationality and value maximization Yoanna A. Kurnianingsih , Sam K. Y. Sim2,3 , Michael W. L. Chee2 and O’Dhaniel A. Mullette-Gillman1,2,4* Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, Neuroscience and Behavioral Disorders Program, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, Singapore, Singapore, Centre for Ageing Studies, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore, Singapore, SINAPSE Institute for Cognitive Science and Neurotechnologies, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore Edited by: Hauke R. Heekeren, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany Reviewed by: Sandra Baez, Institute of Cognitive Neurology, Argentina Gregory R. Samanez-Larkin, Yale University, USA Peter N. C. Mohr, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany *Correspondence: O’Dhaniel A. Mullette-Gillman, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, National University of Singapore, Block AS4, Level 2, Arts Link, Singapore 117570, Singapore odubik@gmail.com Received: 24 December 2013 Accepted: 28 April 2015 Published: 13 May 2015 Citation: Kurnianingsih YA, Sim SKY, Chee MWL and Mullette-Gillman OA (2015) Aging and loss decision making: increased risk aversion and decreased use of maximizing information, with correlated rationality and value maximization. Front. Hum. Neurosci. 9:280. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00280 We investigated how adult aging specifically alters economic decision-making, focusing on examining alterations in uncertainty preferences (willingness to gamble) and choice strategies (what gamble information influences choices) within both the gains and losses domains. Within each domain, participants chose between certain monetary outcomes and gambles with uncertain outcomes. We examined preferences by quantifying how uncertainty modulates choice behavior as if altering the subjective valuation of gambles. We explored age-related preferences for two types of uncertainty, risk, and ambiguity. Additionally, we explored how aging may alter what information participants utilize to make their choices by comparing the relative utilization of maximizing and satisficing information types through a choice strategy metric. Maximizing information was the ratio of the expected value of the two options, while satisficing information was the probability of winning. We found age-related alterations of economic preferences within the losses domain, but no alterations within the gains domain. Older adults (OA; 61–80 years old) were significantly more uncertainty averse for both risky and ambiguous choices. OA also exhibited choice strategies with decreased use of maximizing information. Within OA, we found a significant correlation between risk preferences and choice strategy. This linkage between preferences and strategy appears to derive from a convergence to risk neutrality driven by greater use of the effortful maximizing strategy. As utility maximization and value maximization intersect at risk neutrality, this result suggests that OA are exhibiting a relationship between enhanced rationality and enhanced value maximization. While there was variability in economic decision-making measures within OA, these individual differences were unrelated to variability within examined measures of cognitive ability. Our results demonstrate that aging alters economic decision-making for losses through changes in both individual preferences and the strategies individuals employ. Keywords: aging, decision making, risk, strategy, losses, gains, uncertainty, ambiguity Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org May 2015 | Volume | Article 280 Kurnianingsih et al. Aging and loss decision making In the gains domain, while some studies found OA to be more risk averse than younger adults (YA; Lauriola and Levin, 2001a; Albert and Duffy, 2012; Mather et al., 2012; Tymula et al., 2013), others did not show age-related effects (Mikels and Reed, 2009; Sproten et al., 2010). Inconsistencies have also been observed in the losses domain with some studies suggesting that OA are more risk averse (Mikels and Reed, 2009), and others suggesting that they are more risk seeking (Lauriola and Levin, 2001a; Mather et al., 2012). Only two studies have investigated agerelated alterations of ambiguity preferences, with one suggesting that OA are less ambiguity averse than YA in the gains domain (Sproten et al., 2010) and the other finding no alterations (Tymula et al., 2013). Only one prior study has investigated age-related alteration of ambiguity preferences in the losses domain, finding OA were slightly more risk averse than YA. Neural evidence further suggests that we may anticipate an asymmetry in age-related modulation across the gains and losses domains. Samanez-Larkin et al. (2007) found reduced responsiveness in OA to anticipated monetary losses within striatal regions, while showing similar modulations to YA in the gains domain. Beyond preferences, decision making is also dependent on the strategy one employs to utilize available information to reach their decision. For example, when choosing between two gamble options, one can simply consider the probability of winning for each option, or one can calculate and compare the expected value of each. In a potentially related domain, previous studies have reported that OA tend to use simpler and less demanding strategies for decision making involving probabilities (Kim et al., 2005; Rafaely et al., 2006). However, no prior study has investigated age-related differences in strategy use in monetary decision making. In the present study, we examined how aging effects uncertainty preferences and choice strategies by contrasting relatively healthy OA with YA. To evaluate age-related differences, participants engaged in two incentive-compatible decision tasks (one with gains and one with losses), from which we computed their uncertainty preferences (risk and ambiguity) and quantified the choice strategy they employed to reach their decisions. Our a priori hypotheses were that: (1) healthy aging would result in no alteration of uncertainty preference in the gains domain, (2) OA would be less risk- and ambiguity-seeking in the losses domain, and (3) OA would present diminished choice strategies across both the gains and losses domains. Introduction Aging has been suggested to result in alterations in numerous cognitive processes, but it is unclear what specific alterations in economic decision making may take place. Understanding agerelated alterations of economic decision-making is important, as elderly persons are often less financially resilient and often considered more likely to be targets of consumer fraud (Lee and Soberon-Ferrer, 1997; Castle et al., 2012; Ross et al., 2014). In this study, we specifically test whether economic decision making is altered in a healthy sample of older adults (OA), through tasks that control for dissociable processes (such as learning or memory effects). At the most general cognitive levels, aging is associated with decreased processing speed (Salthouse, 2000) and deficits in a range of cognitive processes, including inhibition (Lustig et al., 2007), executive functions (Goh et al., 2012), episodic memory (Shing et al., 2008), and reward learning (Mell et al., 2005). These changes in cognitive abilities may in turn affect economic decision-making, such as the propensity to invest (Christelis et al., 2010; Korniotis and Kumar, 2011). Prior studies utilizing decision making tasks have suggested alterations across a range of tasks, including the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Denburg et al., 2005, 2009; Wood et al., 2005; Fein et al., 2007; Zamarian et al., 2008; Baena et al., 2010; Carvalho et al., 2012), the Gambling Task (Kovalchik et al., 2005), Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART; Henninger et al., 2010; Rolison et al., 2012), and the Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT; Deakin et al., 2004; Henninger et al., 2010). However, it is unclear whether such studies reflect specific alterations in economic decision making, as these tasks feature outcome resolution at the end of each trial. As aging has been found to impact reward learning (Mell et al., 2005; Eppinger et al., 2011), it is unclear if the observed behavioral changes are merely an extension of age-related decline in learning or if they truly reflect altered preferences or strategies (see Mata et al., 2011; Worthy et al., 2011). The former account is supported by some (Henninger et al., 2010; Boyle et al., 2011) but not other studies (Anderson et al., 2013). Here, we examined how economic decision-making may be specifically altered in relatively healthy OA, focusing on two aspects of economic decision-making: uncertainty preferences (risk and ambiguity) and choice strategies. Uncertainty preferences are a measure of how an individual responds to the unknown future resolution of a probabilistic option (i.e., a gamble). Uncertainty can be described as being of two types, as risk when the probabilities of possible outcomes are known or can be estimated, or as ambiguity when the probabilities of possible outcomes are not well defined (Knight, 1921; Ellsberg, 1961; Camerer and Weber, 1992). Uncertainty preferences differ depending on whether individuals are facing potential gains or losses (Prospect Theory, Kahneman and Tversky, 1979). Given the ubiquity of losses in real-world decisions, it is important to understand how aging may differentially impact decision making across both the gains and losses domains. Across both the gains and losses domains, prior behavioral studies investigating age-related modulation of uncertainty preferences have resulted in inconsistent findings. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org Materials and Methods Participants Data for the YA group were collected from 62 undergraduate students studying at the National University of Singapore (NUS; 24 males; age range = 19–26 years, age mean ± SD = 21.90 ± 1.69 years). Data for the OA group were collected from 39 cognitively healthy participants of the Singapore Longitudinal Brain Aging Study (Chee et al., 2009). These participants were screened, to exclude any of the following: (1) history of significant vascular events (i.e., myocardial May 2015 | Volume | Article 280 Kurnianingsih et al. Aging and loss decision making infarction, stroke, or peripheral vascular disease), (2) history of malignant neoplasia of any form, (3) history of cardiac, lung, liver, or kidney failure, (4) active or inadequately treated thyroid disease, (5) active neurological or psychiatric conditions, (6) a history of head trauma with loss of consciousness, (7) a MiniMental State Examination (MMSE; Folstein et al., 1975) score [...]... al Aging and loss decision making maximizing choice strategies Additionally, we identified a positive effect of aging, a correlation between preference and strategy such that the more engaged a participant was (higher choice strategy), the more rational and value maximizing their behavior was Our results show that healthy aging results in both positive and negative alterations of economic decision- making. .. 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SKY, Chee MWL and Mullette-Gillman OA (2015) Aging and loss decision making: increased risk aversion and decreased use of maximizing information, with correlated rationality and value maximization. Front 9:280. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00280 Aging and loss decision making: increased risk aversion and decreased use of maximizing information, with correlated rationality and value maximization Yoanna A. Kurnianingsih 1 ,SamK.Y.Sim 2,3 ,. Volume 9 | Article 280 Kurnianingsih et al. Aging and loss decision making driven by either decreased use of rEV information or enhanced use of pWIN information, we examined each component individually.