Bechara Gambling Task

Bechara Gambling Task Meaning

The Gambling Task employed in the current study was a computerized version of the task described in detail by Bechara et al. (1994).A net outcome score was computed by subtracting the total number. Key Study: Decision Making, Iowa Gambling and the vmPFC (Bechara et al., 2000). Travis Dixon June 16, 2017 Biological Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Criminology 6 Comments The Iowa Gambling Task is a common test used in experiments on decision making. This task is thought to measure the broad construct of decision-making, with poor performance described as reflecting a “myopia for the future,” where choices are driven more by immediate outcomes than by long-term consequences (Bechara, Dolan, & Hindes, 2002; Bechara et al., 1994).

Bechara’s Gambling Task is more popularly known as Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) which was studied by Antoine Bechara, Antonio Damasio, Hanna Damasio, and Steven Anderson, researchers from the University of Iowa. In this psychological task, the participants’ decision-making skills were observed as they played a virtual card game. Four decks were presented and each one had cards that could give rewards or penalties through game money. Some decks were “good” in the sense that they tend to give more rewards and some were “bad” since they held more penalizing cards. The findings showed that most participants become fairly good at consistently choosing “good decks” after 40 to 50 selections. However, the participants with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) dysfunction still continued to select the bad decks. Also, unlike their healthy counterparts, the patients with OFC did not show stress reactions in response to losing a lot of game money caused by choosing the bad decks.

Iowa Gambling Task Bechara

The Iowa gambling task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994)isoftenusedtoassessdecision-makingdeficitsinclinicalpopulations. Iowa Gambling Task (IGT): A software version of IGT was prepared based on original IGT used by Bechara et al. (Bechara et al., 1994, 2000). The frequency of reward/penalty and magnitude were kept same as used in the original IGT. However, a minor change was made in the IGT used for this study.