Decision Making on Continuous Scales in Aging and Alzheimers Disease

项目总结/摘要 该项目的目标是开发一个模型，解释如何对信息做出决策， 在空间上连续分布，在连续的尺度上做出决策。该模型将提供一个 对决策数据的全方位统一解释，包括准确性、响应的分布 正确和不正确反应的时间，它们如何随着自变量的操纵而变化，以及 它们在个体和群体中的差异。这些数据的总和将使严重的 制约该模式的发展及其成功。用于测试模型的任务将询问 让参与者快速做出简单的决定;例如，指出圆上最亮的区域。 亮度是一个连续的尺度，响应是在一个连续的尺度（圆圈）上进行的。很大， 将收集全面的数据，用于在感知、长期记忆、工作 记忆力和计算能力将检查模型的统计特性， 将确定所需的临床患者，儿童和其他人群的实验， 测试时间必须短。 将研究四个成人人群：年轻人、轻度认知障碍（MCI）成人、 患有早期阿尔茨海默病（AD）和没有认知障碍的老年人。目的将是 了解正常老化如何影响连续决策过程中的各个组成部分， MCI和早期AD如何影响这些成分。几乎没有对AD和MCI患者进行研究 它模拟了决策的时间过程， 连续反应是关于连续分布的信息的。目前尚不清楚， MCI和AD患者的决策与未受损的老年人相同， 独立变量（例如，任务的难度）影响MCI和AD患者的表现。也不 已知建模方法是否可以揭示从准确性和RT数据中无法辨别的保留技能 一个人

Project Summary/Abstract The goal of the project is to develop a model that explains how decisions are made about information that is continuously distributed across space, with decisions made on continuous scales. The model will provide a unified explanation of the full range of decision-making data, including accuracy, the distributions of response times for correct and incorrect responses, how they change with manipulations of independent variables, and how they differ among individuals and groups of individuals. The totality of these data will place severe constraints on the development of the model and its success. The tasks used to test the model will ask participants to make simple decisions quickly; for example, point to the area on a circle that is the brightest. Brightness is a continuous scale and responses are made on a continuous scale (the circle). Large, comprehensive bodies of data will be collected for decision-making in perception, long-term memory, working memory, and numeracy. Statistical properties of the model will be examined and the numbers of observations needed will be determined for experiments with clinical patients, children, and other populations for whom the time for testing must be short. Four populations of adults will be studied: young adults, adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI), adults with early Alzheimer's Disease (AD), and older adults who have no cognitive impairments. The aim will be to understand how normal aging affects individual components of processing in continuous decision-making and how MCI and early AD affect the components. Almost no research has been conducted with AD and MCI patients that models the time course of decision-making and no research has been done for decisions made on continuous response scales about continuously distributed information. It is not known if the components of decision-making are the same for MCI and AD patients as for unimpaired older adults and it is not known how independent variables (e.g., the difficulty of a task) affect performance for MCI and AD patients. It is also not known whether a modeling approach can uncover preserved skills not discernible from accuracy and RT data alone.