Now or Later? Attentional Processing and Intertemporal Choice

The tendency to discount future prospects in lieu of smaller immediate outcomes is known as temporal discounting. The current work used eye-tracking methodology to examine attentional processing to different elements of choice during an intertemporal decision task. Our findings reveal that those who tend to prefer the immediate option demonstrate attentional biases that were predictive of choice. When losses were at stake, selective attention biases also predicted unique variance in self-report measures of risk taking, impulsivity, and self-control beyond what was accounted for by a discounting parameter (k), a typical method for summarizing intertemporal choice data. Overall, our findings suggest that eye-tracking measures of selective attention may allow for a better theoretical understanding of the mechanisms and processes involved in intertemporal choice.