We use a simple cost-benefit analysis to derive optimal similarity judgments - addressing the question: when should we expect a decision maker to distinguish between different time periods or different prizes? Our key premise is that cognitive resources are costly and are to be deployed only...

We consider discounted-utility models with a reference stream of outcomes. We provide a common framework for the main empirically supported discount functions in terms of three underlying functions: The delay, speedup and generating functions. Each of the delay and speedup functions can be...