Recent Experience Affects Delay Discounting: Evidence across Temporal Framing, Signs, and Magnitudes

Delay discounting, the decrease in outcome value as a function of delay to receipt, is an extensive area of research. How delays are framed (i.e., temporal framing), as well as the sign and magnitude of an outcome, produce important effects on the degree to which outcomes are discounted. Here, we examined how recent experience (i.e., order of presentation) modifies these well-known findings. Experiment 1 examined the effects of temporal framing across gains and losses. Regardless of outcome sign, the order of task presentation affected the effect of temporal framing. In particular, when typical delay frames (e.g., 1 week) preceded delays framed as actual dates (e.g., February 15), discounting was less in the date-framed task. However, when dates were followed by the delay frame, there was no difference in the degree of discounting. The experience of date-framed delays persisted or carried over to the delay-framed task. Experiment 2 examined recent experience and the magnitude effect. In particular, $10 and $100 were discounted similarly between-subjects when it was the first task completed. However, once participants completed the second magnitude task, the magnitude effect was present both within-subjects and across subjects. Furthermore, $10 was discounted more steeply when it followed $100, and $100 was discounted less steeply when it followed $10. The impact of recent experience on delay discounting has important implications for understanding mechanisms that may contribute to delay discounting. Recent experience should be considered when designing delay discounting experiments as well as when implementing interventions to reduce steep delay discounting.