Bechara Iowa Gambling Task
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[edit]About
Bechara’s Gambling Task is more popularly known as Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) which was studied by Antoine Bechara, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio, and Steven Anderson, researchers from the University of Iowa. In this psychological task, the participants’ decision-making skills were observed as they played a virtual card game. In order to detect and measure in the laboratory the decision-making impairment of VM lesion patients, we developed a gambling task which resembles the decisions made in real life in terms of reward, punishment and the uncertainty of outcomes (Bechara et al., 1994). The task involves four decks of cards, called A, B, C and D. The Iowa gambling task is a decision-making task that has been used in an fMRI study of binge drinkers and showed that heavy alcohol users make more disadvantageous decisions on the task than nonusers (Xiao et al., 2013). From: Progress in Brain Research, 2016. The Iowa Gambling Task and the somatic marker hypothesis: some questions and answers. The Iowa gambling task is a computerized test in which participants are presented with four decks of cards from which they repeatedly choose. Each deck contains various amounts of rewards of either $50 or $100, and occasional losses that are greater in the decks with higher rewards.
In this test, subject chooses from one of four decks, each having a different reward schedule. This task is based on Bechara et al's so-called 'Iowa Gambling task'
In this procedure, subjects are given $2000 to begin. On each trial, they are given the choice of four decks,and after each card, they are given a reward of some amount; after some cards, they are givena reward and pay a penalty.
[edit]Notes
The penalty/reward structure is identical to that in Bechara et al.with 40 cards per deck, and the identical reward structure.When 100 cards have been selected, the task is complete.
Unlike the real-world version, the deck is just rotated on each draw, so that the top card moves to the bottom of the 40-card deck,and so the sequence will repeat after 40 cards in the original order, rather than becoming exhausted after 40 draws.
[edit]Options
- By default, the penalty cards are in the order originally published by Bechara et al. Setting shuffleDecks <- 1 (from 0) will shuffle the penalty decks
before the experiment. Shuffling is performed in 10-card epochs, so that the penalty in 1-10 stay in 1-10, etc.
- Baseline rewards for each deck can be changed as well, using the deck1Rew, deck2Rew, deck3Rew, and deck4Rew variables.
- The variable gUseMouse controls whether interaction is done using the mouse or keyboard input. Set to 0 for keyboard, 1 for mouse. It is 1 by default.
- The variable numtrials controls how many trials are used. Cards in decks get rotated from top to bottom, so there is no great danger of running out of cards.
[edit]Data Output
Data are saved to igt-X.txt, where X is the participant code. The columns are:
Each row is a trial. You are probably most interested in the proportion that each deck is chosen, which is the third column.
[edit]References
Bechara A, Damasio A. R., Damasio H, & Anderson S. W. (1994). Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition.
[edit]Research Using Test
- Kaare, P. R. (2008). Correlates of pathological gambling in Estonia: Personality, emotional states, self-esteem, cognitive ability and decision-making strategies. University of Tartu Master Thesis.
- Kaare, P. R., Mõttus, R., & Konstabel, K. (2009). Pathological Gambling in Estonia: Relationships with Personality, Self-Esteem, Emotional States and Cognitive Ability. Journal of Gambling Studies, 25(3), 377-390.
- Lipnicki, D. M., Gunga, H. C., Belavy, D. L., & Felsenberg, D. (2009). Bed Rest and Cognition: Effects on Executive Functioning and Reaction Time. Aviation, space, and environmental medicine, 80(12), 1018-1024. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20027848
- Lipnicki, D. M., Gunga, H., Belavy, D. L., & Felsenberg, D. (2009). Decision making after 50 days of simulated weightlessness. Brain Research, 1280, 84-89. doi:10.1016/j.brainres.2009.05.022 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19447099
[edit]See Also
Decisions aren't only made through 'rational' and conscious assessment of options; emotional processing matters. But what role does emotion play in decision making? Antonio Damasio's 'somatic marker' hypothesis holds that we use somatic markers (essentially, gut feelings) to guide decisions when cognitive faculties are busy or when we lack resources or information (Damasio, Tranel & Damasio, 1991). These 'gut feelings' may act subconsciously, steering us towards advantageous options even in the absence of a conscious understanding of the benefits or consequences of a choice.
One way Damasio demonstrated the effects of somatic markers was through the Iowa gambling task (e.g., Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994). In this task, participants are presented with four decks of cards and instructed to choose a card from any of the decks. Each time they chose a card, they either win or lose some money based on what card was drawn. The 'trick' to the task, unknown to the participants, is that two of the decks have small rewards and penalties, but over the long-term will lead to a gain of money. The other two decks have large rewards but also large penalties, and over the long-term will lead to a net loss of money.
Typically, participants end up exclusively selecting cards from the money-winning decks, usually within 40 or 50 trials. But Damasio argues that decisions are guided by somatic markers even before participants are consciously aware of which decks are 'good' or 'bad'. Evidence for his claim comes from skin conductance responses (a measure of emotional arousal), which are higher before 'bad' decisions than 'good' ones, even before the participant has consciously recognized which deck is most rewarding. This finding suggests that the emotional system--via somatic markers--guides participants towards the money-winning decks even before they've consciously recognized them (Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 1997).
Performance in the Iowa gambling task is also sensitive to brain injury. For example, patients with damage to the orbitofrontal cortex continue to choose from money-losing decks and do not show those variable skin conductance responses. Patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex also choose bad decks, but their choices are thought to happen because they are unable to recognize that the higher short-term rewards of the losing decks are countered by larger penalties (Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 2000).
Other researchers have questioned the somatic marker hypothesis and the utility of the Iowa gambling task. Tiago and McClelland (2004) replicated the original gambling task research, but added their own self-report measure of participants' awareness of the long-term advantages and penalties of different decks. Using their method for self-report, participants showed awareness of the advantageous decks even before they began selecting them exclusively, and well before the 40-50 trials Damasio suggested were necessary.
| Standard (default) | Based on the standard Iowa gambling task described by Damasio et al. (1991). Fifty trials are completed using four decks. Two decks have small rewards and penalties, but lead to net gain over time. Two decks have large rewards and large penalties, and lead to net loss over time. |
|---|---|
| Five Decks | This version adds a fifth deck (and ten additional trials) to the standard version. The fifth deck, compared to the other four, has medium penalties and medium rewards, and over time these balance out such that selecting deck five neither gains or loses money in the long run. |
Iowa Gambling Task Bechara Et Al 1994
Bechara, A., Damasio, A.R., Damasio, H., & Anderson, S.W. (1994). Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. Cognition, 50, 7-15.
Bechara A., Damasio H., Tranel D., & Damasio A.R. (1997). Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy. Science, 275, 1293-1295.
Bechara A., Damasio H., Tranel D., & Damasio A.R. (2000). Characterization of the decision-making deficit of patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions. Brain, 123, 2189-2202.
Damasio, A.R., Tranel, D. & Damasio, H. (1991). Somatic markers and the guidance of behaviour: theory and preliminary testing. In Levin, H.S., Eisenberg, H.M., & Benton, A.L. (Eds.), Frontal lobe function and dysfunction (pp. 217-229). New York: Oxford University Press.
Bechara 1994 Iowa Gambling Task
Tiago, M. & McClelland, J. (2004). A reexamination of the evidence for the somatic marker hypothesis: What participants really know in the Iowa gambling task. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, 16075–16080.
Iowa Gambling Task Bechara
| Trial Number | Trial number in the current block |
|---|---|
| Deck Selection | Deck number chosen by participant |
| RT | Time taken (in ms) to make deck selection |
| Reward | Reward/gain from deck selection |
| Penalty | Penalty/loss from deck selection |
| Current Total | Participant's net total after this trial |