Abstract
Formal comparisons of delay discounting models have been conducted using data from humans, with only one study comparing delay discounting data by controls and pathological gamblers. This is the first study using data from nonhuman animals to compare models of intertemporal choice. For each model fitting the impulsive choices of Lewis (LEW) and Fischer (F344) rats, the Akaike’s (1973) information criterion (AIC) and its corresponding AIC weight were computed. The main goal was to show that AIC weights are easy to compute and simplify the interpretation of results generated by single-parameter and dual-parameter models of intertemporal choice. Segments of a published data set (Aparicio, Elcoro, & Alonso-Alvarez, 2015) were used to compare five models of intertemporal choice. All models nicely fitted the data of the LEWs and F344s at the group and individual levels of analysis. Formal comparisons based on AIC weights, evidence ratios of Aikaike weights, and normalized probabilities revealed that Mazur’s (1987) hyperbolic-decay model is the best and most parsimonious model fitting the group and individual data from LEWs and F344s, followed by Samuelson’s (1937) exponential discounted utility function.
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