IntroductionEmotional sta tes are a ccompanied by physiological changes in the body mediated by peripheral, autonomic, endocrine, an d skeletom otor r esponses (Iversen, Kupfermann, & Kandel, 2000). These physiological changes are based on past experiences, when the body learned that a certain event leads to a pleasant or unpleasant feeling. Damasio (1996) called them somatic markers. Although somatic are often unconscious (e.g., pupil dilation), the brain evaluates them as relevant information, which we perceive as an intuitive feeling. Bechara et al. (1997) found that emotion experienced in decision-making (e.g., during risky choices) is accompanied by somatic physiological changes.The aim of our research was to determine whether somatic markers, which reflect intuitive feelings and which dissuade adults from risky choice, occur also during decision-making in children. Skin conductance is considered a primary indicator of somatic markers, in particular of sympathetic physiological arousal (Bechara et al., 1997). Healthy people generate skin conductance responses (SCR) whenever they consider risky behavior and the SCR occurs even before they explicitly know about the riskiness of a choice. Furthermore, SCRs are larger during anticipation of losses than during anticipation of gains (Bechara et al., 1996).Heart rate (HR) is another indicator of anticipatory physiological arousal. HR slows down when a person prepares for a response, and when the consequence is likely to be disadvantageous and risky, HR slows down even more (Crone et al., 2004).The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT, Bechara, 2007) is often employed to investigate decision-making and somatic markers. A participant's task in the IGT is to select cards from four decks to collect as much money as possible. Some cards are risky, because they lead to losses in the long run (despite large shortterm gains), and others are less risky, because they lead to gains. Successful solving of IGT requires sensitivity to one's own emotions or intuition (Pilarik & Sarmany-Schuller, 2009).Men perform better in the IGT and the differences between men and women in IGT task progression and performance are small but consistent, often only shown in large samples of parti cipan ts (van den Bos, Homberg, & de Visser, 2012). This difference has been demonstrated in children and adolescents as well (Overman et al., 2004; Crone et al., 2005).After Bechara et al. (1996), Damasio (1996) and Crone et al. (2005) reported the failure of children in the IGT, they concluded that children are not sensitive to consequences due to the absence of emotional somatic markers related to choosing the advantageous option and avoiding the risky one. Crone et al. (2005) believe that the inability of children (aged 7-12 years) to choose the objectively advantageous option is due to the later maturation of the prefrontal cortex. They compared the decision-making of children in IGT to Bechara's sample of patients with lesions in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, who also tend to fail in the IGT (Bechara et al., 1994). However, Crone et al. (2005) did not directly measure somatic markers.On the other hand, Crone, Vendel, and Van der Molen (2003) claim that healthy people aged 12-25 years are already able to successfully deal with IGT and their success is dependent on the age increase. Research of Hooper and her colleagues (Hooper et al., 2008), focused on adolescents, shows that children aged 9-17 years are able to successfully deal with IGT and also that the success was positively correlated with age of participants.Four decks in the IGT are characterized by three dimensions - frequency of loss, magnitude of loss, and certain gain. Each of the decks represents a different ratio of parameters of each dimension. For the success in the IGT it is necessary to understand the relations between all dimensions, and also parameters of one deck related to another one, to find out which deck is more or less risky. …