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Description: Computational models of decision making typically assume as people deliberate between options they mentally simulate outcomes from each one and integrate valuations of these outcomes to form a preference. In two studies, we investigated this deliberation process using a task where participants make a series of decisions between a certain and an uncertain alternative. To make a decision, participants were provided with a rapid stream of samples of possible payoffs from each option. We developed and validated measures of how this time-varying signal were used to make a choice. The first study used this method to examine how information processing during deliberation differed from a perceptual analog of the task. We found during preferential choice participants were less sensitive to each sample of information. In a second study, we investigated how these different measures of deliberation are related to impulsivity, attitudes about risk taking, and drug and alcohol use. We found that while properties of the deliberation process were not related to impulsivity or risk attitudes, some aspects of the process may be related to substance use. In this sample of participants, alcohol abuse was related to diminished sensitivity to the payoff information and drug use was related to the a priori bias towards risk taking. We synthesize our results with sequential sampling rank-dependent utility model that offers an explanation of how observed samples impact the deliberation process during preferential choice.