Decision-making under risk conditions is susceptible to interference by a secondary executive task

Abstract

Recent research suggests two ways of making decisions: an intuitive and an analytical one. The current study examines whether a secondary executive task interferes with advantageous decision-making in the Game of Dice Task (GDT), a decision-making task with explicit and stable rules that taps executive functioning. One group of participants performed the original GDT solely, two groups performed either the GDT and a 1-back or a 2-back working memory task as a secondary task simultaneously. Results show that the group which performed the GDT and the secondary task with high executive load (2-back) decided less advantageously than the group which did not perform a secondary executive task. These findings give further evidence for the view that decision-making under risky conditions taps into the rational-analytical system which acts in a serial and not parallel way as performance on the GDT is disturbed by a parallel task that also requires executive resources.

Impaired Decision-Making Under Risk in Individuals with Alcohol Dependence

“…In other words, alcohol-dependents' impairment in both storing and manipulating information in working memory is associated with high-risk decision-making. These results are in line with previous findings showing that advantageous decision-making under risk is associated with intact executive processes (Brand et al 2008; Brand et al, 2009; Brevers et al, 2012; Starcke et al, 2011). One possible explanation for this result is that a larger working memory processing capacity may facilitate attention shifting during decision-making from more salient rewards (e.g., option featuring high but uncertain reward during the Cups task), to less salient/risky outcomes (e.g., option featuring low but certain reward during the Cups task) (Finn, 2002; Finn and Hall, 2004; Oberauer, 2002).…”

“…By contrast, making a decision under risk, which offers explicit rules for reinforcement and punishment, would involve both the integration of pre-choice emotional processes and rational analytical system aspects that require the capacity to represent a dilemma, maintain and organize information in working memory, strategically plan and execute a response, and to evaluate the efficacy of the solution (Brand et al, 2006; Krain et al, 2006). This idea is supported by data showing that advantageous decision-making under risk (Starcke et al, 2011), but not under ambiguity (Turnbull et al, 2005), is lowered when subjects have to take a decision while concurrently performing a secondary task (random number generation), which is known to load on executive resources (Baddeley and Della Sala, 1996). Neuroimaging data also support this distinction.…”

“…On the other hand, decision-making under risk, but not under ambiguity, depends on the integrity of the dorsolateral prefrontal loop (Brand et al, 2006). These regions are critical for the exercise of executive control (Kerr and Zelazo, 2004; Starcke et al, 2011), which is also considered a specific process of working memory (Baddeley and Della Sala, 1996). …”

Acute stress affects risk taking but not ambiguity aversion

“…As several studies pointed to the fact that risk taking and working memory performance are related (Cokely, 2009; Corbin, 2010; Starcke et al, 2011; Brevers et al, 2012), we decided to include a short measure of working memory performance in our study 4 . We used the digit span (forward) subtest of the German adaptation of the Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Adults (Tewes and Wechsler, 1991).…”

Risky decision making in adults with ADHD

“…Two ways of making decisions have been postulated: the so-called intuitive-experiential system and the rational-analytical system (Starcke, Pawlikowski, Wolf, Altstötter-Gleich, & Brand, 2011). Both systems have been studied in adolescent populations suffering from ADHD.…”