The Neurophysiological Evidence of Age Difference in the Effect of Framing on Risky Choices

A prevalent conservative stereotype about older adults is that people become risk-aversive and more cautious as they get older. However, the risk-aversion stereotype about older adult seems not be the case in the real world. As for the neural signature in the decision-making process, it has been well-documented that the compromised fronto-striato-limbic system in older adults leads to the inferior value-based decision-making. The framing effect is a well-known phenomenon that affects decision-making by manipulating the questions phrased in a manner that underscores the positive (gain) or negative (loss) aspects of a scenario to promote risk-averse or risk- seeking choices, respectively. Nevertheless, there are few neural-related evidence addressing whether and how the effect of age would modulate the framing effect in decision-making. In the present proposal, we will use ERP to reveal the underlying neural mechanism for better portriating the decision-making process in the elderly. We will also include the individual neuropsychological data to examine the effect of individual difference in decision making processes. Also, we will extend to examine the framing effect with suboptimal healthy populations. After understanding the basic neural mechanism of aging in the framing effect, we will further manipulate factors to reduce the framing effect. Through this three-year project, we wish to provide an efficient strategy to enhance older adults’ decision quality as well as minimize the risky decision.

Project ID:PF10703-0011
External Project ID:MOST107-2410-H182-001