Are Normal Decision-Makers Sensitive to Changes in Value Contrast under Uncertainty? Evidence from the Iowa Gambling Task

Abstract

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) developed by Bechara et al. in 1994 is used to diagnose patients with Ventromedial Medial Prefrontal Cortex (VMPFC) lesions, and it has become a landmark in research on decision making. According to Bechara et al., the manipulation of progressive increments of monetary value can normalize the performance of patients with VMPFC lesions; thus, they developed a computerized version of the IGT. However, the empirical results showed that patients' performances did not improve as a result of this manipulation, which suggested that patients with VMPFC lesions performed myopically for future consequences. Using the original version of the IGT, some IGT studies have demonstrated that increments of monetary value significantly influence the performance of normal subjects in the IGT. However, other research has resulted in inconsistent findings. In this study, we used the computerized IGT (1X-IGT) and manipulated the value contrast of progressive increments (i.e., by designing the 10X-IGT, which contained 10 times of progressive increment) to investigate the influence of value contrast on the performance of normal subjects. The resulting empirical observations indicated that the value contrast (1X- vs. 10X-IGT) of the progressive increment had no effect on the performance of normal subjects. This study also provides a discussion of the issue of value in IGT-related studies. Moreover, we found the “prominent deck B phenomenon” in both versions of the IGT, which indicated that the normal subjects were guided mostly by the gain-loss frequency, rather than by the monetary value contrast. In sum, the behavioral performance of normal subjects demonstrated a low correlation with changes in monetary value, even in the 10X-IGT.

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“…This means that these individuals could not establish B as a deck involving long-term losses (probably because they are focused on the frequency of the losses, which is one per 10 cards). This effect has been previously described in studies with non-clinical samples (e.g., Lin et al, 2007; Lee et al, 2014), and it underlines the importance of analyzing all four decks (ABCD), as argued by Steingroever et al (2013). These decision-making problems are due to the inability to establish stimulus-reward relationships or to eradicate previously learnt responses (Maia and McClelland, 2004; Rolls, 2004).…”

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“…As a result, the IGT simulates decision-making featuring an uncertainty in the context of punishment and reward (Brevers et al, 2013). The IGT showed to be robust in the face of certain changes in its parameters such as using it in the original 40-card manual version (Bechara et al, 1994), 60-card computerized version (Bechara et al, 2000), and computerized version with a higher value contrast (Lee et al, 2014).…”

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“… Bechara & Damasio (2000) hypothesized that, by increasing monetary gains, participants would be more motivated and thus perform better. However, the data indicated that performance did not improve with larger wins (ibidem; Lee et al, 2014 ). Similarly, in the frequently observed ‘prominent deck B’ phenomenon ( Crone et al, 2004 ; Lin et al, 2007 ; Visagan, Xiang & Lamar, 2012 ), a high frequency of wins associated with deck B makes it difficult for participants to resist it despite ‘its bad final outcomes’ (see Visagan, Xiang & Lamar, 2012 ).…”