The Vivid Present: Visualization Abilities Are Associated with Steep Discounting of Future Rewards
Open accessAbstract
Humans and other animals discount the value of future rewards, a phenomenon known as delay discounting. Individuals vary widely in the extent to which they discount future rewards, and these tendencies have been associated with important life outcomes. Recent studies have demonstrated that imagining the future reduces subsequent discounting behavior, but no research to date has examined whether a similar principle applies at the trait level, and whether training visualization changes discounting. The current study examined if individual differences in visualization abilities are linked to individual differences in discounting and whether practicing visualization can change discounting behaviors in a lasting way. Participants (n = 48) completed the Visualization of Vivid Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) and delay discounting task and then underwent a four-week intervention consisting of visualization training (intervention) or relaxation training (control). Contrary to our hypotheses, participants who reported greater visualization abilities (lower scores) on the VVIQ were higher discounters. To further examine this relationship, an additional 106 participants completed the VVIQ and delay discounting task. In the total sample (n= 154), there was a significant negative correlation between VVIQ scores and discount rates, showing that individuals who are better visualizers are also higher discounters. Consistent with this relationship but again to our surprise, visualization training tended, albeit weakly, to increase discount rates, and those whose VVIQ decreased the most were those whose discount rates increased the most. These results suggest a novel association between visualization abilities and delay discounting.
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The choice set used to measure discount rates was widely adopted and designed to capture a broad range of discount rates.
“We used a widely adopted choice set designed to capture a broad range of discount rates31–37.”
From Temporal discounting predicts procrastination in the real world (2024) · cites this paper as [34]
The Materials and Methods sections describe a 102-question intertemporal-choice task used to estimate discount rates. The Introduction says discount rates vary widely across individuals, but our copy does not establish that this particular choice set was widely adopted or designed to capture a broad range of rates. No page numbers are available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.82)
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References 74 · Cited by 59
- Authors
- Parthasarathi, T., McConnell, M. H., Luery, J., & Kable, J. W.
- Affiliations
- University of Pennsylvania (US)
- University of Arizona (US)
- Corresponding author
- Parthasarathi, Trishala
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2017-03-06
- Volume
- 8
- Pages
- 289-289
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5337487
- OpenAlex
- W2594828159
- Cited by
- 59
- References
- 74
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 37 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 5 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 2.36
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UA Campus Repository (The University of Arizona) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
- ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- ScholarlyCommons (University of Pennsylvania) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Pennsylvania
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Psychological and Temporal Perspectives Research
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
- Keywords
- delay discounting, visualization ability, vivid imagery, individual differences, visualization training, future rewards, relaxation training
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