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International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research logoLink to International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research
. 2010 Aug 19;19(3):167–176. doi: 10.1002/mpr.309

Studying the relation between temporal reward discounting tasks used in populations with ADHD: A factor analysis

Anouk Scheres 1,2,✉, Motofumi Sumiya 1, Allison Lee Thoeny 1
PMCID: PMC6878257  PMID: 20812292

Abstract

Background: This study aimed at investigating the relationship between tasks that have been used in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to measure choices between smaller immediate and larger delayed rewards: real and hypothetical temporal discounting tasks, and single‐choice paradigms.

Methods: Participants were 55 undergraduate psychology students. Tasks included a real and hypothetical version of a temporal discounting (TD) task with choices between a large reward (10 cents) after delays up to 60 seconds, and smaller immediate rewards (2–8 cents); two versions of a hypothetical temporal discounting task with choices between a large reward ($100) after delays up to 120 months, and smaller immediate rewards ($1–$95); a Choice Delay Task with choices between one point now and two points after 30 seconds (one point is worth five cents).

Results: Correlation analyses showed that the real and the hypothetical TD tasks with 10 cents were very strongly associated. However, the hypothetical TD tasks with $100 did not correlate with either the real or the hypothetical TD task with 10 cents. Principal component analysis extracted two components: one for small amounts and short delays, and a second one for large rewards and long delays.

Conclusions: Temporal reward discounting is not a uniform construct. Functional brain imaging research could shed more light on unique brain activation patterns associated with different forms of temporal reward discounting. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: reward, temporal discounting, delay discounting, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, impulsivity

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly funded by an NIMH R03 grant (MH074512‐01A1) to AS. We gratefully acknowledge all participants. We thank Tiffany Glant for her help with data collection, Ellen Hamaker for help with statistical analyses, and Alan Sanfey and Chandra Tontsch for useful comments and discussions.

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