Decision Making
Food Delay Discounting Task
Also called: delay discounting of food, food reward discounting
Measure how much a delay lowers the value of a favorite snack, with hypothetical food amounts, adjusting choices, indifference points, and AUC scoring.
3-5 minUntimed
Free to start: 10 free participants per account, then $0.99 per participant for academic research, or any yearly plan. Preview any test free after you sign up.
- Papers, 2021 to 2025
- 2,088
- Evidence grade
- A
- Registered clinical studies
- 257
What it measures
Measures how much a delay lowers the value of a favorite snack food, using adjusting choices between an amount today and 100 later. The food is hypothetical.
Constructs
- Intertemporal choice
- Food reward valuation
- Impulsive choice
- Delay of gratification
Research uses
- Eating behavior and obesity research
- Binge eating and food reward studies
- Comparison with money discounting in the same participants
- Within-study group comparison
How the paradigm works
Food Delay Discounting measures how much a delay lowers the value of a favorite snack food. Participants first pick their favorite of seven snack types from the list of Manwaring et al. (2011): nonchocolate candy, chocolate candy bars, chips, cookies, popcorn, crackers or hard pretzels, and nuts or seeds. On each screen they then choose between an amount of that snack today and 100 later. The food is hypothetical, and every screen says so.
More about the paradigm
The task uses the adjusting-amount procedure of the platform's money version (Du, Green and Myerson, 2002) at five delays, in order: 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year and 5 years. At each delay the amount today starts at 50. After each choice it moves down if the participant took the amount today, or up if they chose to wait. The first step is 25 and each later step is half the one before. The amount that would come next is the indifference point: the amount today worth as much as 100 at that delay. The standard 30 choices give 6 per delay. As in Manwaring et al. (2011), one unit is the smallest usual amount of the snack, such as a candy bar or a small bag of chips.
Scores match the money version: the indifference points, the area under the discounting curve (Myerson, Green and Warusawitharana, 2001), a hyperbolic discount rate k (Mazur, 1987), the share of choices for the amount today, and a consistency flag based on the Johnson and Bickel (2008) checks. The chosen snack type is saved with the scores.
Scores
- Area Under the Curve%
- Area under the indifference points, with delays and amounts scaled from 0 to 1. A value of 1 means no discounting.
- Higher means less discounting
- Discount Rate (k)per day
- Hyperbolic k fitted to the indifference points with V = A / (1 + kD), with the delay D in days.
- Higher means steeper discounting
- Indifference Point at 1 Monthitems
- Amount of the chosen snack today judged equal to 100 in 1 month. Points are also reported at 1 week, 6 months, 1 year and 5 years.
- Higher means less discounting
- Immediate Choice Rate%
- Share of all choices that took the amount today.
- Informational
- Consistency Flagflag
- 1 when the indifference points pass both Johnson and Bickel (2008) checks. 0 when a point rises more than 20 above the one before it, or the last point is not at least 10 below the first.
- 1 supports interpretation
Use and evidence
2,088 papers from 2021 to 2025 name this task in their title or abstract, down 4% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 12 of 395 test families in our census. The counts cover every version of the task, so the Delay Discounting page shows the same figures. See the counts for every test.
Show the numbers
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 491 |
| 2024 | 418 |
| 2023 | 360 |
| 2022 | 384 |
| 2021 | 435 |
| 2020 | 397 |
| 2019 | 425 |
| 2018 | 465 |
| 2017 | 441 |
| 2016 | 437 |
| 2015 | 414 |
| 2014 | 369 |
| 2013 | 309 |
| 2012 | 302 |
| 2011 | 274 |
| 2010 | 219 |
| 2009 | 185 |
| 2008 | 140 |
| 2007 | 125 |
| 2006 | 95 |
| 2005 | 67 |
| 2004 | 50 |
| 2003 | 44 |
| 2002 | 38 |
| 2001 | 17 |
| 2000 | 18 |
Use grade A
1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025.
Evidence grade A
At least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome.
- Papers on test-retest reliability
- 48
- Papers on reliability or validity
- 396
- Registered clinical studies using it as an outcome
- 257
How the grades work
Use: A is 1,000 or more papers from 2021 to 2025, B 300 to 999, C 100 to 299, D 30 to 99 and E fewer than 30. Evidence: A means at least 25 papers report its test-retest reliability and at least 25 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome; B, at least 8 test-retest papers, and either 5 registered clinical studies or 150 reliability or validity papers; C, at least 2 test-retest papers, 30 reliability or validity papers or 3 registered clinical studies; D, little published measurement evidence found. The counts measure use. They include every paper that names the task in its title or abstract. Grades describe the published research on this task, not ConductCognition's version of it.
Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
Quality checks
Each session is marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason, before you see its scores.
Scored rows: the scored run's food choices. Choices have no correct answer. Choosing one screen side on 90% of choices invalidates, because the side of the immediate amount is drawn at random each time. Answers under 200 ms on at least half the choices invalidate. Failing the Johnson and Bickel (2008) checks is flagged.
Why these rules
There is no correct option to compare with chance, so accuracy is not judged against chance. A preference for today or later moves between screen sides, so choosing by side alone means the amounts were not read. Johnson and Bickel (2008) present their two checks for nonsystematic data as a tool for identification, not automatic exclusion, and note that genuine non-discounters can fail the second one. An answer under 200 ms is faster than a simple visual reaction, so it cannot reflect the item. Following response-time effort screening for untimed tests (Wise and Kong 2005), the session is invalid only when at least half the answers are that fast.
No percentile. Scores and quality flags only.
Running this test
Settings you can change
| Setting | Standard | Allowed |
|---|---|---|
| Number of choices | 30 | 15 to 60 |
Yearly plans can change settings within these limits. Free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Need a setting this test does not have?
Devices and languages
- Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. Participant devices
- Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese.
- Available on: Every plan, including the free plan.
- No percentile. Scores and quality flags only. How norms work
- Recruiting online? See the setup guides for Prolific, Sona Systems, CloudResearch Connect and Qualtrics.
Cite and describe
Participants completed the Food Delay Discounting task in a web browser (ConductCognition task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0; Manwaring et al., 2011; Du, Green & Myerson, 2002), with the standard settings (number of choices: 30). The main score was area under the curve (area under the indifference points, with delays and amounts scaled from 0 to 1).
Paradigm source: Manwaring et al. (2011); Du, Green & Myerson (2002).
ConductCognition versions: task version 1.0.0, scoring version 1.0.0. Every export records the versions each session used, for a methods section.
Source papers
- Manwaring JL, Green L, Myerson J, Strube MJ, Wilfley DE (2011). Discounting of various types of rewards by women with and without binge eating disorder: Evidence for general rather than specific differences. The Psychological Record, 61(4):561-582.Paradigm source, Adults
- Du, Green and Myerson (2002): adjusting-amount procedure. Myerson, Green and Warusawitharana (2001): area under the discounting curve. Johnson and Bickel (2008): checks for nonsystematic data.Paradigm source, Adults
Questions
How long does the Food Delay Discounting Task take?
About 3 to 5 minutes, as listed in the test library.
What device does a participant need?
Untimed test: runs on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones. The browser must be Chrome, Edge, Firefox or Safari.
What scores does it produce?
Area Under the Curve, Discount Rate (k), Indifference Point at 1 Month, Immediate Choice Rate and Consistency Flag. Each session is also marked valid, needs review or invalid, with the reason.
How widely is the Food Delay Discounting Task used in research?
2,088 papers from 2021 to 2025 name it in their title or abstract, down 4% compared with 2016 to 2020. That ranks it 12 of 395 test families in the ConductCognition test census (use grade A). Source: ConductCognition test census 0.14.0, counted 31 October 2026 from OpenAlex and ClinicalTrials.gov.
How much reliability evidence does the Food Delay Discounting Task have?
In the published research, 48 papers report its test-retest reliability and 257 registered clinical studies use it as an outcome (evidence grade A in the ConductCognition test census).
Does it report a percentile?
No. Scores and quality flags only.
Which settings can a researcher change?
Number of choices (15 to 60). Settings can be changed on yearly plans; free and pay-as-you-go studies use the standard settings.
Which languages can participants use?
Participants can take this test in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Chinese (Simplified) and Japanese. English is on every plan, and the other languages come with yearly plans. Have a native speaker read the machine-translated text before launch.
Is this a clinical test?
No. ConductCognition is for research use only. It runs, scores and exports the test; clinical interpretation is outside the platform.
Every test: the full test list.
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