Rewards often unfold over time; we must summarize events in memory to guide future choices. Do first impressions matter most, or is it better to end on a good note? Across nine studies (N = 569), we tested these competing intuitions and found that preferences depend on when rewards occur and when we are asked to evaluate an experience. In our "garage sale" task, participants opened boxes containing sequences of objects with values. All boxes were equally valuable, but rewards were either evenly distributed or clustered at the beginning, middle, or end of the sequence. First, we tested preferences and valuation shortly after learning; we consistently found that boxes with rewards at the beginning were strongly preferred and overvalued. Object-value associative memory was impaired in boxes with early rewards, suggesting that value information was linked to the box rather than the objects. However, when tested after an overnight delay, participants equally preferred boxes with any cluster of rewards, whether at the beginning, middle, or end of the experience. Finally, we demonstrated that evaluating shortly after an experience led to lasting preferences for early rewards. Overall, we show that people summarize rewarding experiences in a nonlinear and time-dependent way, unifying prior work on affect, memory, and decision making. We propose that short-term preferences are biased by first impressions. However, when we wait and evaluate an experience after a delay, we summarize rewarding events in memory to inform adaptive longer term preferences. Preferences depend on when rewards occur and when we first evaluate an experience. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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第一印象还是好结局？偏好取决于您何时询问。


回报通常会随着时间的推移而显现;我们必须总结内存中的事件以指导未来的选择。第一印象最重要，还是以一个好的音符结束更好？在 9 项研究 （N = 569） 中，我们测试了这些相互竞争的直觉，发现偏好取决于奖励何时发生以及何时被要求评估体验。在我们的 “garage sale” 任务中，参与者打开了包含具有值的对象序列的盒子。所有盒子的价值都相同，但奖励要么均匀分布，要么聚集在序列的开头、中间或结尾。首先，我们在学习后不久测试了偏好和估值;我们始终发现，一开始带有奖励的盒子被强烈推荐并被高估。对象值联想记忆在具有早期奖励的盒子中受损，这表明价值信息与盒子而不是对象相关联。然而，在隔夜延迟后进行测试时，参与者同样喜欢包含任何奖励集群的盒子，无论是在体验的开始、中期还是结束时。最后，我们证明了在体验后不久进行评估会导致对早期奖励的持久偏好。总体而言，我们表明人们以非线性和时间依赖的方式总结有益的经历，统一了之前关于情感、记忆和决策的工作。我们提出短期偏好会受到第一印象的影响。但是，当我们在延迟后等待和评估体验时，我们会在内存中汇总奖励事件，以告知自适应的长期偏好。偏好取决于奖励的发放时间以及我们首次评估体验的时间。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 （c） 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。