In this paper, we compare the cause and effect of immaterial rewards and sanctions on cooperation in a voluntary contributions experiment. We find that both rewards and sanctions increase contributions only when subjects interact repeatedly, though rewards seem to be more effective than sanctions. Moreover, in contrast to sanctions, rewards do have an impact on future contributions. Although th...

Costs and rewards are important ingredients for many types of systems, modelling critical aspects like energy consumption, task completion, repair costs, and memory usage. This paper introduces Markov reward automata, an extension of Markov automata that allows the modelling of systems incorporating rewards (or costs) in addition to nondeterminism, discrete probabilistic choice and continuous s...

We complement the empirical evidence on the sustainability of weight loss achieved through cash rewards and, for the fi rst time, rigorously examine the potential of cash rewards to prevent weight cycling. In a three period randomized controlled trial, about 700 obese persons were fi rst assigned to two treatment groups, which were promised cash contingent on the achievement of an individually ...

Deficits in episodic memory are associated with deficits in the ability to imagine future experiences (i.e., mental time travel). We show that K.C., a person with episodic amnesia and an inability to imagine future experiences, nonetheless systematically discounts the value of future rewards, and his discounting is within the range of controls in terms of both rate and consistency. Because K.C....