2006 Special IssueNeuropsychological correlates of decision-making in ambiguous and risky situations
Introduction
To make decisions is a key function in everyday life. Disturbances in the ability to make decisions or to anticipate the possible consequences of decisions can result in massive social, sanitary and financial problems. In the last decade, there was an increasing interest to investigate neural correlates of decision-making abilities and disturbances both in healthy subjects and in patients with brain damage or dysfunction using neuropsychological and neuroimaging techniques. However, some important questions still remain unsolved. For instance, the specific neural mechanisms of decision-making processes have not been revealed in detail. Although various patient groups are deficient in decision-making, the sensitivity and specificity of such deficits are not clear. And, most importantly, there is still a debate about different types of decisions or decision-making situations. In this contribution, we will first briefly review studies that examined decision-making in ambiguous situations in different groups of patients with brain abnormalities. Thereafter, we will summarize results of studies that investigated decision-making in explicit or risky situations. Finally, we will combine the aforementioned findings and propose that decisions under ambiguity and decisions under risk share some important basic components but differ regarding the involvement of executive functions. We also assume that in a decision situation with explicit rules individuals can decide advantageously without using unconscious biasing signals (somatic markers).
Section snippets
Research with the Iowa Gambling Task: Decisions under ambiguity?
One of the most frequently used neuropsychological tasks to assess decision-making in ambiguous situations is the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) developed by Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, and Anderson (1994) (a computerized version is described in Bechara, Tranel, and Damasio (2000)). The IGT requires individuals to choose between four different alternatives (card decks). The choices are either advantageous or disadvantageous but each choice is full of ambiguity regarding the outcome. Although not
Research with the Cambridge Gamble Task and with the Game of Dice Task: Decisions under risk?
In everyday life, situations in which decisions have to be made frequently offer explicit information about the potential consequences and the probabilities for reinforcement and punishment. For instance, when driving a car on a street with a speed limit, one knows that the punishment is higher the faster one drives when speeding is monitored. In some cases one also knows the probability of speed monitoring (i.e., dependent on specific streets or highways and specific times, e.g., weekend or
Synthesis
The studies on decision-making mentioned above indicate that there are potentially at least two types of decisions: decisions under ambiguity, as most likely measured with the first trials of the IGT, and decisions under risk, as measured by the CGT and the GDT. The decision-making processes assessed by these tasks most likely share several basic components but also differ regarding specific neuropsychological and neural correlates. In both decision types, the prefrontal cortex and other
Acknowledgements
Parts of the work on this article have been supported by the German Research Foundation (BR 2894/1-1). We thank Eva Böcker for her very helpful assistance with the graphs.
References (79)
- et al.
Chronic pain patients are impaired on an emotional decision-making task
Pain
(2004) - et al.
Deficit in decision making in catatonic schizophrenia: an exploratory study
Psychiatry Research
(2005) The role of emotion in decision-making: evidence from neurological patients with orbitofrontal damage
Brain & Cognition
(2004)- et al.
Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex
Cognition
(1994) - et al.
Decision-making and addiction (part I): impaired activation of somatic states in substance dependent individuals when pondering decision with negative future consequences
Neuropsychologia
(2002) - et al.
The Iowa Gambling Task and the somatic marker hypothesis: some questions and answers
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
(2005) - et al.
Decision-making deficits, linked to dysfunctional ventromedial prefrontal cortex, revealed in alcohol and stimulant abusers
Neuropsychologia
(2001) - et al.
Decision-making and addiction (part II): myopia for the future or hypersensitivity to reward?
Neuropsychologia
(2002) - et al.
Orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction in abstinent cocaine abusers performing a decision-making task
NeuroImage
(2003) - et al.
Neural substrates of faulty decision-making in abstinent marijuana users
NeuroImage
(2005)
Decision-making impairments in patients with pathological gambling
Psychiatry Research
Neuropsychological investigation of decision-making in anorexia nervosa
Psychiatry Research
Decision-making heterogeneity in obsessive–compulsive disorder: ventromedial prefrontal cortex function predicts different treatment outcomes
Neuropsychologia
Frontal lobe dysfunction in pathological gambling patients
Biological Psychiatry
The contributions of lesion laterality and lesion volume to decision-making impairment following frontal lobe damage
Neuropsychologia
The somatic marker hypothesis: a critical evaluation
Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
Decision-making in a risk-taking task: a PET study
Neuropsychopharmacology
Decision making in pathological gambling: a comparison between pathological gamblers, alcohol dependents, persons with Tourette syndrome, and normal controls
Cognitive Brain Research
The somatic marker hypothesis: still many questions but no answers: response to Bechara et al
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
Risky decisions and response reversal: is there evidence of orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction in psychopathic individuals?
Neuropsychologia
A modified card sorting test sensitive to frontal lobe defects
Cortex
Dissociable Deficits in the decision-making cognition of chronic amphetamine abusers, opiate abusers, patients with damage to prefrontal cortex, and tryptophan-depleted normal volunteers: evidence for monoaminergic mechanisms
Neuropsychopharmacology
The functions of the orbitofrontal cortex
Brain & Cognition
Probabilistic learning and reversal deficits in patients with Parkinson’s disease or frontal or temporal lobe lesions: possible adverse effects of dopaminergic medication
Neuropsychologia
Long-term heavy marijuana users make costly decisions on a gambling task
Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Comparative neuropsychological function in obsessive–compulsive disorder and schizophrenia with and without obsessive–compulsive symptoms
Schizophrenia Research
Functional architecture of basal ganglia circuits: neural substrates of parallel processing
Trends in Neurosciences
Basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits: parallel substrates for motor, oculomotor, “prefrontal” and “limbic” functions
Progress in Brain Research
Role of the amygdala in decision-making
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
Different contributions of the human amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex to decision-making
Journal of Neuroscience
Dissociation of working memory from decision making within the human prefrontal cortex
Journal of Neuroscience
Deciding advantageously before knowing the advantageous strategy
Science
Impaired decision making related to working memory deficits in individuals with substance addictions
Neuropsychology
Characterization of the decision-making deficit of patients with ventromedial prefrontal cortex lesions
Brain
Altered dopamine function in pathological gambling
Psychological Medicine
Sex-related differences in a gambling task and its neurological correlates
Cerebral Cortex
Decision-making deficits of Korsakoff patients in a new gambling task with explicit rules: associations with executive functions
Neuropsychology
Organic and psychogenic factors leading to executive dysfunctions in a patient suffering from surgery of a colloid cyst of the Foramen of Monro
Neurocase
Decision-making impairments in patients with Parkinson’s disease
Behavioural Neurology
Cited by (394)
A systematic review and meta-analysis of risky decision-making in specific domains of problematic use of the internet: Evidence across different decision-making tasks
2023, Neuroscience and Biobehavioral ReviewsDecision-making under ambiguity after frontal lobe resection for epilepsy
2023, Epilepsy and BehaviorThe impact of mild cognitive impairment on decision-making under explicit risk conditions: Evidence from the Personality and Total Health (PATH) Through Life longitudinal study
2023, Journal of the International Neuropsychological SocietyEffort Expenditure Increases Risk-Taking for Improbable Rewards
2024, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin