Singh Varsha, Khan Azizuddin
Department of Organizational Behavior and Human Resources, Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, India.
Front Neurosci. 2012 Jul 19;6:107. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2012.00107. eCollection 2012.
Surface-level differences in the reward and punishment variants, specifically greater long-term decision making in the punishment variant of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) observed in previous studies led to the present comparison of long-term decision making in the two IGT variants (n = 320, male = 160). It was contended that risk aversion triggered by a positive frame of the reward variant and risk seeking triggered by a negative frame of the punishment variant appears as long-term decision making in the two IGT variants. Apart from the frame of the variant as a within-subjects factor (variant type: reward and punishment), the order in which the frame was triggered (order type: reward-punishment or punishment-reward), and the four types of instructions that delineated motivation toward reward from that of punishment (reward, punishment, reward and punishment, and no-hint) were hypothesized to have an effect on foresighted decision making in the IGT. As expected, long-term decision making differed across the two IGT variants suggesting that the frame of the variant has an effect on long-term decision making in the IGT (p < 0.001). The order in which a variant was presented, and the type of the instructions that were used both had an effect on long-term decision making in the two IGT variants (p < 0.05). A post hoc test suggested that the instructions that differentiated between reward and punishment resulted in greater foresight than the commonly used IGT instructions that fail to distinguish between reward and punishment. As observed in previous studies, there were more number of participants (60%) who showed greater foresight in the punishment variant than in the reward variant (p < 0.001). The results suggest that foresight in IGT decision making is sensitive to reward and punishment frame in an asymmetric manner, an observation that is aligned with the behavioral decision making framework. Benefits of integrating findings from behavioral studies in decision neuroscience are discussed, and a need to investigate cultural differences in the IGT studies is pointed out.
奖励和惩罚变体在表面层面上的差异，特别是先前研究中在爱荷华赌博任务（IGT）的惩罚变体中观察到的更强的长期决策能力，导致了本研究对两种IGT变体中长期决策能力的比较（n = 320，男性 = 160）。有人认为，奖励变体的积极框架引发的风险规避和惩罚变体的消极框架引发的风险寻求在两种IGT变体中表现为长期决策。除了将变体框架作为一个被试内因素（变体类型：奖励和惩罚）外，还假设框架触发的顺序（顺序类型：奖励 - 惩罚或惩罚 - 奖励）以及区分奖励动机和惩罚动机的四种指令类型（奖励、惩罚、奖励和惩罚、无提示）会对IGT中的前瞻性决策产生影响。正如预期的那样，两种IGT变体的长期决策存在差异，这表明变体框架对IGT中的长期决策有影响（p < 0.001）。呈现变体的顺序以及所使用的指令类型对两种IGT变体中的长期决策都有影响（p < 0.05）。事后检验表明，区分奖励和惩罚的指令比常用的IGT指令更具前瞻性，后者未能区分奖励和惩罚。正如先前研究中所观察到的，更多参与者（60%）在惩罚变体中表现出比奖励变体更强的前瞻性（p < 0.001）。结果表明，IGT决策中的前瞻性对奖励和惩罚框架以不对称方式敏感，这一观察结果与行为决策框架一致。讨论了将行为研究结果整合到决策神经科学中的益处，并指出有必要在IGT研究中调查文化差异。
