Affective guidance in the Iowa gambling task (original) (raw)
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Brain Sciences, 2021
Being able to distinguish between safe and risky options is paramount in making functional choices. However, deliberate manipulation of decision-makers emotions can lead to risky behaviors. This study aims at understanding how affective reactions driven by normatively irrelevant affective cues can interfere with risk-taking. Good and Bad decks of the Iowa Gambling Task have been manipulated to make them unpleasant through a negative auditory manipulation. Anticipatory skin conductance response (SCR) and heart rate variability (HRV) have been investigated in line with the somatic marker hypothesis. Results showed fewer selections from Good decks when they were negatively manipulated (i.e., Incongruent condition). No effect of the manipulation was detected when Bad decks were negatively manipulated (i.e., Congruent condition). Higher anticipatory SCR was associated with Bad decks in Congruent condition. Slower heart rate was found before selections from Good decks in Control and Congr...
Affective biasing of choices in gambling task decision making
Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2006
The proponents of the somatic marker hypothesis presume that rational decision making is guided by emotional reactions that are developed from prior experience. Supporting evidence for the hypothesis comes almost exclusively from the short-term affective reactions that are learned during the course of a hypothetical decision-making task-the gambling task (GT). We examined GT performance and affective reactions to choices when those choices were biased by words that had preexisting affective value. In one experiment, affectively valued words directly signaled good and bad choices. A congruent relation between affective value of word and choice outcome improved GT performance, whereas an incongruent relation greatly interfered with performance. In another experiment, affectively valued words were maintained as a working memory (WM) load between GT choices. A WM load with affectively positive words somewhat improved GT performance, whereas affectively negative words interfered with performance. Somatic markers-indicated by differential anticipatory skin conductance response (SCR) amplitude for good and bad choices-appeared at a point in the GT session when choice performance was superior. However, differential SCR developed during the session after good choice performance was already established. These results indicate that preexisting affective biases can influence GT decision making. In addition, the somatic markers that are regular accompaniments of GT decision making appeared to be temporally lagging indicators of choice performance.
In the winning mood: Affect in the Iowa gambling task
Judgment and Decision …, 2008
The present research aimed to test the role of mood in the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT;. In the IGT, participants can win or lose money by picking cards from four different decks. They have to learn by experience that two decks are overall advantageous and two decks are overall disadvantageous. Previous studies have shown that at an early stage in this card-game, players begin to display a tendency towards the advantageous decks. Subsequent research suggested that at this stage, people base their decisions on conscious gut feelings . Based on empirical evidence for the relation between mood and cognitive processing-styles, we expected and consistently found that, compared to a negative mood state, reported and induced positive mood states increased this early tendency towards advantageous decks. Our results provide support for the idea that a positive mood causes stronger reliance on affective signals in decision-making than a negative mood.
2008
The role of the frequency of wins and losses in the Iowa Gambling Task (Bechara, A., Damasio, A., Damasio, H., & Anderson, S. 1994. Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition, 50, 7–15) was investigated in 2 experiments manipulating the long-term expected value of the decks participants had to choose from. The first experiment adopted the typical setting of the task in which every card selection was followed by a monetary win, while losses happened only occasionally. In the second experiment every decision led to a loss while the contingent event was represented by wins. In both experiments the long-term expected value of the decks did not seem to influence the participants’ choices that were, however, sensitive to the frequency with which the decks produced the contingent event. Immediate gains or losses associated with the decks exerted their effect on the first few choices only. The relevance of these findings for Damasio's Som...
Place your bets: psychophysiological correlates of decision-making under risk
Cognitive Affective & Behavioral Neuroscience, 2011
Emotions and their psychophysiological correlates are thought to play an important role in decision-making under risk. We used a novel gambling task to measure psychophysiological responses during selection of explicitly presented risky options and feedback processing. Active-choice trials, in which the participant had to select the size of bet, were compared to fixed-bet, no-choice trials. We further tested how the chances of winning and bet size affected choice behavior and psychophysiological arousal. Individual differences in impulsive and risk-taking traits were assessed. The behavioral results showed sensitivity to the choice requirement and to the chances of winning: Participants were faster to make a response on no-choice trials and when the chances of winning were high. In active-choice trials, electrodermal activity (EDA) increased with bet size during both selection and processing of losses. Cardiac responses were sensitive to choice uncertainty: Stronger selection-related heart rate (HR) decelerations were observed in trials with lower chances of winning, particularly on active-choice trials. Finally, betting behavior and psychophysiological responsiveness were moderately correlated with self-reported impulsivity-related traits. In conclusion, we demonstrate that psychophysiological arousal covaries with risk-sensitive decision-making outside of a learning context. Our results further highlight the differential sensitivities of EDA and HR to psychological features of the decision scenario.
Affective response predicts risky choice for fast, but not slow, decisions
Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics
We use skin conductance to measure emotional arousal in subjects who make risky choices under time pressure or time delay. Our results show a strong correlation between subjects' skin conductance responses and their risky choices under time pressure but not under time delay. Subjects were more risk taking for higher levels of measured electrodermal activity (skin conductance). In line with descriptive theories of risky choice, the effect was most pronounced for choices involving losses rather than gains. Taken together, our findings indicate that participants under time pressure rely on affect at the point of decision-making. This provides support for behavioral models that recognize the role of emotional brain systems in decision making under risk.
Anxiety impairs decision-making: Psychophysiological evidence from an Iowa Gambling Task
2008
Abstract Using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and psychophysiological correlates of emotional responses (ie, heart rate and skin conductance), we investigate the effects of trait anxiety (TA) on decision-making. We find that high TA is associated with both impaired decision-making and increased anticipatory physiological (somatic) responses prior to advantageous trials. For both high and low TA, skin conductance responses preceding advantageous trials predict decisions.
Affective bias in complex decision making: modulating sensitivity to aversive feedback
Motivation & Emotion, 2011
The present study investigated the conflict between well-developed attitudes and incentive rewards using the Iowa Gambling Task. In particular, the incorporation of emotional labels allowed us to model the role of affective biases and their impact on complex decision making over time. Two experiments manipulated the class of deck label (emotional pictures and racial faces) using both congruent and incongruent association to the deck incentives. Both experiments demonstrated that an incongruent association can lead to striking and persistent decision making biases. Thus, a common theme was a general inability to tolerate conflict between rewards and goal-irrelevant labels. Notably, Experiment 2 demonstrated that this ‘incongruency’ effect appeared to result from positive labels interfering with aversive experiences from bad decks. More generally, sensitivity to accumulating losses from punishing decks was primarily associated with successful performance on these Gambling Task variants. These results suggest emotional biases are readily harmful in complex decision making, and that flexibility in the extent to which we permit emotional influences to guide our decisions is crucial.