Go for broke: The role of somatic states when asked to lose in the Iowa Gambling Task

Rebecca J Wright,Tim Rakow,Riccardo Russo

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.10.014

Rebecca J Wright, Tim Rakow + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2016.10.014

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Abstract

The Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH) posits that somatic states develop and guide advantageous decision making by “marking” disadvantageous options (i.e., arousal increases when poor options are considered). This assumption was tested using the standard Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) in which participants win/lose money by selecting among four decks of cards, and an alternative version, identical in both structure and payoffs, but with the aim changed to lose as much money as possible. This “lose” version of the IGT reverses which decks are advantageous/disadvantageous; and so reverses which decks should be marked by somatic responses – which we assessed via skin conductance (SC). Participants learned to pick advantageously in the original (Win) IGT and in the (new) Lose IGT. Using multilevel regression, some variability in anticipatory SC across blocks was found but no consistent effect of anticipatory SC on disadvantageous deck selections. Thus, while we successfully developed a new way to test the central claims of the SMH, we did not find consistent support for the SMH.

Highlights

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994) was devised in order to understand the decision making deficits shown by patients with damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC); in particular, their tendency to repeat disadvantageous courses of action
There was a significant three way interaction between Deck, Block and Version of IGT, F(12, 840) = 14.62, p < 0.001, ␩p2 = 0.173, so two separate 5 (Block) × 4 (Deck: A, B, C, D) Analysis of variance (ANOVA) were run for each version
Irrespective of whether participants are asked to win, or to lose, they successfully learn to pick more from those decks that are advantageous to their goal

Summary

Introduction

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994) was devised in order to understand the decision making deficits shown by patients with damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC); in particular, their tendency to repeat disadvantageous courses of action. The decrement in these patients’ personal, financial and social decision making following their brain damage – despite intact intelligence, attention, memory and language skills – led to the development of the Somatic Marker Hypothesis (SMH; Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1991; Damasio, 1994). When this course of action is considered in a subsequent decision, the somatic signals are activated and so serve to reduce the likelihood of repeating previous poor decisions

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