Iowa Gambling Task

by Jerry "Jet" Whittaker
May 20, 2006

This is a psychological task introduced by the researchers at University of Iowa in 1994 –

Bechara, Damasio, Tranel and Anderson. Used by the psychologists for the studying human cognition (the mental functions in humans such as the ability to think, reason and remember) and emotions, it is thought to be stimulant of decision making in the real life. Antonio Damasio (introduced the concept of the Somatic Marker Hypothesis) popularized Iowa Gambling Task.

About Iowa Gambling Task –

Assessment of neurological patients with ventro-mesial frontal lesions is done using Iowa Gambling Task, though the Iowa Group states it becomes too complicated for the participants of the neurological studies. They find it difficult to follow this task using just cognition so they have to resort to the learning systems that are based on the emotions (somatic markers).

In the traditional Iowa Gambling Task, the participants show slow, steady improvement. In ‘Firefighting Task’ (similar to Iowa Gambling Task), the participants just imitate the performance of other participants with ventro-mesial frontal lesions, but do not show any learning effect. This indicates that the Iowa Gambling Task becomes complex and cannot be performed without using the direct somatic markers.

Tool in examining OFC Dysfunction –

In a human brain, OFC or Orbitofrontal Corte is located within the frontal lobes, above the orbits of the eyes and is the region of association cortex and is known for its involvement in the cognitive processes like decision-making. It is located within the frontal lobes, above the orbits of the eyes. It is a part of the limbic system and deals with the human emotions.

OFC regulates the human behavior with respect to the sensitivity to the rewards and punishment. Two sets of studies are conducted to show the functioning of OFC – a study on a healthy group of participants and another on patients with damaged OFC.

Iowa Gambling Task is used as a tool to stimulate the real life decisions. In OFC research, participants are given four virtual card decks and are told to choose a card every time they win game money. The objective of the game is to win as much money as they can. With every card chosen, they win and lose some money. The participants have to choose a card based on the ‘gut reaction’ and not consciously. Two of the decks are bad, resulting in net loss and two are good resulting in net gain in the longer run. The healthy group chooses cards from each deck and after 40-50 cards tend to stick to the good decks. The other group with OFC dysfunction, go for the bad decks even after knowing they are incurring net loss in the longer run.

Copyright © 2000-2006 GamblingWiz.com All rights reserved.