Anticipation and Choice Heuristics in the Dynamic Consumption of Pain Relief
Figure 5
Observed distribution of relief consumption across time.
A Median relief consumption on each trial at the group level is indicated by the solid black circles. Error bars indicate the upper and lower quartiles of consumption. B The distribution of group level consumption. The intensity of the grey bars represents the proportion of the 30 participants included in the analysis choosing to consume each amount of relief on a particular trial. Relief is expressed in units, produced by rounding the raw consumption choices to the nearest 10 units of relief. A tendency to conserve relief is evident from below-average consumption over the first 40 trials and above-average consumption over the last 20 trials. A tendency to spread relief across time is evident from the high proportion of choices to spend 4 units of relief, the mean rounded relief per trial over the whole experimental run. C Consumption paths from six sample participants. Hollow circles denote the consumption choices on each trial. The bold dashed line denotes the mean relief remaining at the start of each trial. These six participants are selected as representative of the key patterns observed. The first two participants (i and ii) on spread relief over time. The subsequent three participants (iii-v) predominantly conserve relief, as evidenced by an increase in the mean relief remaining per trial over time. Participant vi) consumes above the mean relief remaining towards the start of the session and subsequently adjusts consumption downward.