Value-based decision-making is often studied in a static context, where participants decide which option to select from those currently available. However, everyday life often involves an additional dimension: deciding when to select to maximise reward. Recent evidence suggests that agents track the latent reward of an option, updating changes in their latent reward estimate, to achieve appropriate selection timing ( latent reward tracking ). However, this strategy can be difficult to distinguish from one in which the optimal selection time is estimated in advance, allowing an agent to wait a pre-determined amount of time before selecting, without needing to monitor an option’s latent reward ( distance-to-goal tracking ). Here we show that these strategies can in principle be dissociated. Human brain activity was recorded using electroencephalography (EEG) while female and male participants performed a novel decision task. Participants were shown an option and decided when to select it, as its latent rewar...