Winning and losing: Effects on impulsive action.

Abstract

In the present study, we examined the effect of wins and losses on impulsive action in gambling (Experiments 1–3) and nongambling tasks (Experiments 4–5). In each experiment, subjects performed a simple task in which they had to win points. On each trial, they had to choose between a gamble and a nongamble. The gamble was always associated with a higher amount but a lower probability of winning than the nongamble. After subjects indicated their choice (i.e., gamble or not), feedback was presented. They had to press a key to start the next trial. Experiments 1–3 showed that, compared to the nongambling baseline, subjects were faster to initiate the next trial after a gambled loss, indicating that losses can induce impulsive actions. In Experiments 4 and 5, subjects alternated between the gambling task and a neutral decision-making task in which they could not win or lose points. Subjects were faster in the neutral decision-making task if they had just lost in the gambling task, suggesting that losses have a general effect on action. Our results challenge the dominant idea that humans become more cautious after suboptimal outcomes. Instead, they indicate that losses in the context of potential rewards are emotional events that increase impulsivity.

Behavioural and neural limits in competitive decision making: The roles of outcome, opponency and observation

“…We failed to find evidence for our secondary hypothesis that in the context of random opponency, the removal of response choice should have had a facilitatory effect on performance in moving players towards MES. While the data from Experiment 2 suggest a somewhat pessimistic (inhibitory) role of interruption during competition, it is clear that similar kinds of decision-making might be naturally interrupted after the experience of a positive outcome either by the player in the form of post-reinforcement pausing (e.g., Dixon & Schreiber, 2004;Dyson et al, 2018;Verbruggen et al, 2017;Forder & Dyson, 2016) or by the opponent itself such as in the case of slot machines where longer music tends to play when the win is bigger (e.g., Dixon et al, 2013). This leads us to the intriguing possibility that mandatory pauses following negative outcomes during play conditions might help to break the cyclical poorer-quality decision making characterised in problem gambling (see Ivan, Banks, Goodfellow & Gruber, 2018, for a similar suggestion).…”

“…Finally, to return to the issue of optimal behaviour during competition, we consider what impact observe trials may have on play trials when they are randomized within the same block. Against an unexploitable opponent and in the context of continuous play, we have previously observed that there is a preponderance of shift behavior following failure and this increase in predictability (and hence potential exploitability) may be due to individuals being more impulsive following negative outcome Dyson et al, 2018;Forder & Dyson, 2016;Verbruggen et al, 2017). If observe trials serve to break the cycle of poor quality play behaviour against unexploitable opponents, then observe-play trial pairs might help to reduce the degree to which individuals place themselves in exploitable positions by enabling a regression to MES, relative to play-play trial pairs.…”

“…In contrast, performance following positive outcomes (win trials) tend to lead to a rough approximation of MES behaviour, but deviations from MES can be observed when the value of win is increased, making it more likely that the organism exhibits win-stay behavior (Forder & Dyson, 2016; see also Srihaput, Sundvall & Dyson, in preparation). Part of the reason why sub-optimal, exploitable lose-shift behaviour reliably occurs may be due to the self-imposed reduction in processing time allocated to decision making on trials following negative outcome (Dixon & Schreiber, 2004;Dyson, Sundvall, Forder & Douglas, 2018;Forder & Dyson, 2016;Verbruggen, Chambers, Lawrence & McLaren, 2017). Such ideas are also consistent with observations of tilting behaviour following loss in poker (e.g., Laakasuo et al, 2015), chasing behaviour following loss in roulette (e.g., Mitzenmacher & Upfal, 2005), and post-reinforcement pauses where gamblers revel in or 'consume' the current reward such that the initiation of the next trial takes longer following positive outcome (Dixon, MacLaren, Jarick, Fugelsang & Harrigan, 2013; see also Zheng et al, 2017).…”

Clarifying the Role of Negative Emotions in the Origin and Control of Impulsive Actions

“…a negative affective state that is induced by a failure to obtain an incentive or the blockage of a desired goal) or regret (i.e. the realization that another choice would have produced a better outcome, which may be a cognitive form of frustration; Reid, 1986) can invigorate behavior, a recent study observed faster responses after losses in a gambling task (Verbruggen, Chambers, Lawrence, & McLaren, 2017). In this gambling task, participants could either choose a non-gambling option (a guaranteed amount of points) or choose a gambling option (the amount was always higher than the amount associated with the non-gamble, but the probability of winning was always lower).…”

“…In the framework of Carver (2006) and Frijda (2010), this might be functional because increased control can help to narrow the gap between the current state and the desired state. But as discussed in the previous sections, there is also a corpus of evidence suggesting that negative (emotional) events can promote impulsive behavior (Dyson, Sundvall, Forder, & Douglas, 2018;Verbruggen et al, 2017;Yu et al, 2014). Saunders and Inzlicht (2015) proposed the shifting priorities model to explain how a negative event such as an error or failure may result in distinct aftereffects.…”