Components of working memory and somatic markers in decision making

Abstract

According to Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis, affective reactions ordinarily guide and simplify decision making. In an earlier study, we used a modified version of the gambling task developed by Bechara and colleagues so that we could explore the relations among decision making, working memory (WM) load, and formation of somatic markers. This prior work found that an increased WM load produced by secondary tasks interfered with the development of somatic markers and led to poorer gambling task performance. In the present study, we tested whether secondary tasks affect the executive functions of WM, verbal buffering, or both. Our findings indicate that verbal buffering alone does not interfere with gambling task performance or the development of somatic markers. Interference with the executive functions of WM is necessary to disrupt gambling performance and somatic markers.

Recruitment of intuitive versus analytic thinking strategies affects the role of working memory in a gambling task

“…The WM conditions (holding a string of digits in memory, or generating random numbers), as compared to the condition without WM load (repeating digits flashed up on the screen), led to poorer performance on the GT. These findings were later replicated by Jameson, Hinson and Whitney (2004) by using a different complex version of the GT with four decks, one Good, one Neutral, and two Bad decks. Secondary tasks included a digit maintenance task, an articulatory suppression task and a simple keypress task.…”

“…Unlike the original GT, and like Jameson et al (2004), on each trial participants either gained or lost money. We made this choice because in most real-life situations losses and gains are mutually exclusive rather than combined.…”

“…By avoiding decks with extreme losses, participants' preferences are straightforwardly directed to the Good decks; that is, a successful strategy for the classic GT qualifies-by definition-as an intuitive decision strategy. In contrast, the GT used by Jameson et al (2004) and partly the GTs used by Hinson et al (2002), could not be successfully completed by using a simple, one-feature decision strategy. Detecting the Good deck required considering the amount of gains and losses and their respective probabilities.…”

Effect of Emotional Distracters on Cognitive Decision-Making in Cambridge Gambling Task

“…However, the first argument about the importance of the ventromedial and orbital PFC in the IGT performance was brought from the observed overlaps, not restriction, of the lesions of the patients with low IGT scores (Bechara et al, 1994(Bechara et al, , 2005. Furthermore, whether or not additional components such as the reversal learning (Maia & McClelland, 2004), working memory (Hinson et al, 2002;Jameson et al, 2004), and executive functions (Turnbull, Evans, Bunce, Carzolio, & O'Connor, 2005) are necessary to consider the IGT performance is the matter of debate. Thus the interpretation of the experimental results using the IGT is still being discussed and the consensus regarding the responsible brain areas and the necessary cognitive components to perform the IGT is not brought yet.…”

Memory for Choices in Alzheimer’s Disease

“…Both decisions with clear rules, such as the Game of Dice Task and decisions without clear rules, such as the Iowa Gambling Task involve executive functions such as categorization and working memory [e.g. 4,5] . Thus, the declines in both episodic memory and executive function seen in AD are likely to affect decision making processes as well as memory for the decisions.…”