- Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiment Stories
- Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiment Definition
- Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiments
- Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiment Theory
The Iowa gambling task is a psychological task thought to simulate real-life decision making.It was introduced by Bechara, Damasio, Tranel and Anderson (1994), then researchers at the University of Iowa. It has been brought to popular attention by Antonio Damasio, proponent of the Somatic markers hypothesis and author of Descartes' Error. The task is sometimes known as Bechara's Gambling Task, and is widely used in research of cognition and emotion.
Participants are presented with 4 virtual decks of cards on a computer screen. They are told that each time they choose a card they will win some game money. Every so often, however, choosing a card causes them to lose some money. The goal of the game is to win as much money as possible. Every card drawn will earn the participant a reward. Occasionally, a card will also have a penalty. Thus, some decks are 'bad decks', and other decks are 'good decks', because some will lead to losses over the long run, and others will lead to gains. The decks differ from each other in the number of trials over which the losses are distributed.
Most healthy participants sample cards from each deck, and after about 40 or 50 selections are fairly good at sticking to the good decks. Patients with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) dysfunction, however, continue to perseverate with the bad decks, sometimes even though they know that they are losing money overall. Concurrent measurement of galvanic skin response shows that healthy participants show a 'stress' reaction to hovering over the bad decks after only 10 trials, long before conscious sensation that the decks are bad. By contrast, patients with OFC dysfunction never develop this physiological reaction to impending punishment. Bechara and his colleagues explain this in terms of the somatic marker hypothesis. The Iowa gambling task is currently being used by a number of research groups using fMRI to investigate which brain regions are activated by the task in healthy volunteers as well as clinical groups with conditions such as schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder.
In 1994, neuroscientists Antonio Damasio and Hannah Damasio, suffering from a lingering curiosity about the Gage accident and the reports of associated behavioral changes, rebuilt Gage’s brain with 3-D software. In an ingenious experiment, Damasio demonstrated that subconsciously generated physical changes in the body significantly precede a person’s deliberate and rational thinking. (See Iowa Gambling Task) In this experiment, participants were given four decks of cards along with $2,000 in play money. According to the somatic marker hypothesis, formulated by Antonio Damasio, emotions play a crucial role in guiding decisions. 'Somatic markers' are feelings in the body that are linked to emotions, like rapid heartbeat as a signal for fear, or nausea as a signal for disgust.
Critiques of the Iowa Gambling Task
Damasio’s great predecessor is William James 2 (and, before him, David Hume), and his metaphysical adversary is Ren Descartes. As early as 1884, James proposed that emotion is perception of a somatic state; for example, subtract the tense muscles, tightening gut, and tachycardia from the sense of anger, and nothing is left. Another example or evidence that Damasio uses, is the gambling experiment. In this experiment, four decks of cards are laid out in front of the subject. The subject is given $2,000 of play money, and told that he has to try to lose as little as he can and win as much as he can.
Although the IGT has achieved prominence, it is not without its critics. Criticisms have been raised over both its design and its interpretation. Published critiques include:
* A paper by Dunn, Dalgliesh and Lawrence [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16197997&query_hl=17&itool=pubmed_docsum]
* Research by Lin, Chiu, Lee and Hsieh [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=17362508&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum] , who argue that a common result (the “prominent deck B” phenomenon) argues against some of the interpretations that the IGT has been claimed to support.
Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiment Stories
* Research by Chiu and Lin [http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/3/1/37] , the “sunken deck C” phenomenon was identified, which confirmed a serious confounding embedded in the original design of IGT, this confounding makes IGT serial studies misinterpret the effect of gain-loss frequency as final-outcome for Somatic marker hypothesis.
Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiment Definition
* A research group in Taiwan utilized an IGT-modified and relatively symmetrical gamble for gain-loss frequency and long-term outcome, namely the Soochow Gambling Task (SGT) [http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/4/1/13] demonstrated a reverse finding of Iowa Gambling Task. Normal decision makers in SGT were mostly occupied by the immediate perspective of gain-loss and inability to hunch the long-term outcome in the standard procedure of IGT (100 trials under uncertainty). Richard Peterson [http://www.marketpsych.com/blog/2006/10/neuroeconomics-2006-book-large-cap.html] [http://www.marketpsych.com/blog/2007/10/neuroeconomics-2007-happenings-at-sfn.html] in his book, Inside the investor’s brain [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470067373] , considered the serial findings of SGT may be congruent with the Nassim Taleb’s [http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/] suggestion on some fooled choices in investment.
References
Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiments
* Bechara A, Damasio AR, Damasio H, Anderson SW (1994). 'Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex', 'Cognition' 50: 7-15.
* A research group in Taiwan utilized an IGT-modified and relatively symmetrical gamble for gain-loss frequency and long-term outcome, namely the Soochow Gambling Task (SGT) [http://www.behavioralandbrainfunctions.com/content/4/1/13] demonstrated a reverse finding of Iowa Gambling Task. Normal decision makers in SGT were mostly occupied by the immediate perspective of gain-loss and inability to hunch the long-term outcome in the standard procedure of IGT (100 trials under uncertainty). Richard Peterson [http://www.marketpsych.com/blog/2006/10/neuroeconomics-2006-book-large-cap.html] [http://www.marketpsych.com/blog/2007/10/neuroeconomics-2007-happenings-at-sfn.html] in his book, Inside the investor’s brain [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0470067373] , considered the serial findings of SGT may be congruent with the Nassim Taleb’s [http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/] suggestion on some fooled choices in investment.
References
Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiments
* Bechara A, Damasio AR, Damasio H, Anderson SW (1994). 'Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex', 'Cognition' 50: 7-15.
Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiment Theory
External links
*A free implementation of the Iowa Gambling task is available as part of the [http://pebl.sourceforge.net PEBL Project] [http://pebl.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/moin.cgi/User-Contributed_Experiments/Iowa_Gambling_Task]
*Another, web based, implementation that will also run as a standalone application is available [http://users.fmg.uva.nl/rgrasman/jscript/2005/09/iowa-gambling-task.html here] .
*An Italian implementation is available [http://www.mondoxsardegna.it/igt.php here] .