Different strategies underlying uncertain decision making: higher executive performance is associated with enhanced feedback-related negativity

The neural substrates of how model-based learning affects risk taking: Functional coupling between right cerebellum and left caudate

Higher executive control capacity allows people to appropriately evaluate risk and avoid both excessive risk aversion and excessive risk-taking. The neural mechanisms underlying this relationship between executive function and risk taking are still unknown. We used voxel-based morphometry (VBM) analysis combined with resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) to evaluate how one component of executive function, model-based learning, relates to risk taking. We measured individuals' use of the model-based learning system with the two-step task, and risk taking with the Balloon Analogue Risk Task. Behavioral results indicated that risk taking was positively correlated with the model-based weighting parameter ω. The VBM results showed a positive association between model-based learning and gray matter volume in the right cerebellum (RCere) and left inferior parietal lobule (LIPL). Functional connectivity results suggested that the coupling between RCere and the left caudate (LCAU) was correlated with both model-based learning and risk taking. Mediation analysis indicated that RCere-LCAU functional connectivity completely mediated the effect of model-based learning on risk taking. These results indicate that learners who favor model-based strategies also engage in more appropriate risky behaviors through interactions between reward-based learning, error-based learning and executive control subserved by a caudate, cerebellar and parietal network.

Adaptations of the balloon analog risk task for neuroimaging settings: a systematic review

Introduction

The Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), a computerized behavioral paradigm, is one of the most common tools used to assess the risk-taking propensity of an individual. Since its initial behavioral version, the BART has been adapted to neuroimaging technique to explore brain networks of risk-taking behavior. However, while there are a variety of paradigms adapted to neuroimaging to date, no consensus has been reached on the best paradigm with the appropriate parameters to study the brain during risk-taking assessed by the BART. In this review of the literature, we aimed to identify the most appropriate BART parameters to adapt the initial paradigm to neuroimaging and increase the reliability of this tool.

Methods

A systematic review focused on the BART versions adapted to neuroimaging was performed in accordance with PRISMA guidelines.

Results

A total of 105 articles with 6,879 subjects identified from the PubMed database met the inclusion criteria. The BART was adapted in four neuroimaging techniques, mostly in functional magnetic resonance imaging or electroencephalography settings.

Discussion

First, to adapt the BART to neuroimaging, a delay was included between each trial, the total number of inflations was reduced between 12 and 30 pumps, and the number of trials was increased between 80 and 100 balloons, enabling us to respect the recording constraints of neuroimaging. Second, explicit feedback about the balloon burst limited the decisions under ambiguity associated with the first trials. Third, employing an outcome index that provides more informative measures than the standard average pump score, along with a model incorporating an exponential monotonic increase in explosion probability and a maximum explosion probability between 50 and 75%, can yield a reliable estimation of risk profile. Additionally, enhancing participant motivation can be achieved by increasing the reward in line with the risk level and implementing payment based on their performance in the BART. Although there is no universal adaptation of the BART to neuroimaging, and depending on the objectives of a study, an adjustment of parameters optimizes its evaluation and clinical utility in assessing risk-taking.

Tools for the Assessment of Risk-Taking Behavior in Older Adults with Mild Dementia: A Cross-Sectional Clinical Study

Diseases such as Alzheimer's cause an alteration of cognitive functions, which can lead to increased daily risk-taking in older adults living at home. The assessment of decision-making abilities is primarily based on clinicians' global analysis. Usual neuropsychological tests such as the MoCA (Montreal Cognitive Assessment) cover most of the cognitive domains and include mental flexibility tasks. Specific behavioral tasks for risk-taking, such as the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) or the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), have been developed to assess risk-taking behavior, particularly in the field of addictology. Our cross-sectional study aims to determine whether the MoCA global cognitive assessment could be used as a substitute for behavioral tasks in the assessment of risky behavior. In the current study, 24 patients (age: 82.1 ± 5.9) diagnosed with mild dementia completed the cognitive assessment (MoCA and executive function assessment) and two behavioral risk-taking tasks (BART, simplified version of the IGT). Results revealed no relationship between scores obtained in the MoCA and behavioral decision-making tasks. However, the two tasks assessing risk-taking behavior resulted in concordant risk profiles. In addition, patients with a high risk-taking behavior profile on the BART had better Trail Making Test (TMT) scores and thus retained mental flexibility. These findings suggest that MoCA scores are not representative of risk-taking behavioral inclinations. Thus, additional clinical tests should be used to assess risk-taking behavior in geriatric settings. Executive function measures, such as the TMT, and behavioral laboratory measures, such as the BART, are recommended for this purpose.

Deterministic and probabilistic regularities underlying risky choices are acquired in a changing decision context

Predictions supporting risky decisions could become unreliable when outcome probabilities temporarily change, making adaptation more challenging. Therefore, this study investigated whether sensitivity to the temporal structure in outcome probabilities can develop and remain persistent in a changing decision environment. In a variant of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task with 90 balloons, outcomes (rewards or balloon bursts) were predictable in the task's first and final 30 balloons and unpredictable in the middle 30 balloons. The temporal regularity underlying the predictable outcomes differed across three experimental conditions. In the deterministic condition, a repeating three-element sequence dictated the maximum number of pumps before a balloon burst. In the probabilistic condition, a single probabilistic regularity ensured that burst probability increased as a function of pumps. In the hybrid condition, a repeating sequence of three different probabilistic regularities increased burst probabilities. In every condition, the regularity was absent in the middle 30 balloons. Participants were not informed about the presence or absence of the regularity. Sensitivity to both the deterministic and hybrid regularities emerged and influenced risk taking. Unpredictable outcomes of the middle phase did not deteriorate this sensitivity. In conclusion, humans can adapt their risky choices in a changing decision environment by exploiting the statistical structure that controls how the environment changes.

Risk-taking in the human brain: An activation likelihood estimation meta-analysis of the balloon analog risk task (BART)

The Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) is increasingly used to assess risk-taking behavior and brain function. However, the brain networks underlying risk-taking during the BART and its reliability remain controversial. Here, we combined the activation likelihood estimation (ALE) meta-analysis with both task-based and task-free functional connectivity (FC) analysis to quantitatively synthesize brain networks involved in risk-taking during the BART, and compared the differences between adults and adolescents studies. Based on 22 pooled publications, the ALE meta-analysis revealed multiple brain regions in the reward network, salience network, and executive control network underlying risk-taking during the BART. Compared with adult risk-taking, adolescent risk-taking showed greater activation in the insula, putamen, and prefrontal regions. The combination of meta-analytic connectivity modeling with task-free FC analysis further confirmed the involvement of the reward, salience, and cognitive control networks in the BART. These findings demonstrate the core brain networks for risk-taking during the BART and support the utility of the BART for future neuroimaging and developmental research.

Hypersensitivity to negative feedback during dynamic risky-decision making in major depressive disorder: An event-related potential study

BACKGROUND

Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) exhibit a diminished ability to think or concentrate, indecisiveness, and altered sensitivity to reward and punishment. These impairments can influence complex risk-related decision-making in dynamic environments. The neurophysiological mechanisms mediating MDD effects on decision-making behavior are not well understood.

METHODS

Patients with MDD (N=50) and healthy controls (HC, N=40) were enrolled. They completed a series of psychometric tests. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded during the performance of a well-validated modified version of Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART).

RESULTS

BART behavior data were similar across the two groups except the MDD patients showed more stability of risk aversion. Neurophysiologically, BART losses generated larger P3 amplitudes than wins, and MDD patients had larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) components than HCs in response to negative feedback (losses). Greater FRN amplitudes in response to losses correlated with higher levels of depressiveness, psychological pain, and anhedonia. A longer FRN latency in MDD patients was associated with more severe suicidal ideation.

LIMITATIONS

The findings are based on cross-sectional data, which are not powerful enough to make causal inferences.

CONCLUSION

MDD patients exhibit enhanced FRNs in the frontocentral region after receiving negative feedback in a risky decision-making task. FRN magnitude is associated with depressive symptom severity. Punishment hypersensitivity may contribute to the maintenance of depressive symptoms in MDD patients, and FRN may be a useful index of such hypersensitivity.

Males with low risk-taking propensity overestimate risk under acute psychological stress

Arousing research has investigated stressed individuals' decision biases, but whether and how stress and individual traits interact to impact the underlying decision-making process is unknown. Here, we aim to explore the effect of acute stress on the interaction between the objective level of risk and subjective risk preference (i.e. risk-taking propensity). Eighty-three healthy males participated in the study. We adopted the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) to induce acute psychological stress and categorized participants into the high or low risk-taking propensity (HRP/LRP) group according to their traits in daily life. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) was applied to measure their feedback processing in a risky decision task, while behavioral indexes and EEG signals were recorded. The results showed that stressful participants pumped fewer times than the controls, especially for the LRP under stress, indicating that they were more willing to avoid taking risks. Compared with the stressed HRP group, the stressed LRP showed higher salivary cortisol responses and a more positive FRN following positive feedback in higher risk levels. It implies that acute psychological stress leads the LRP to overestimate the risk probability and become more cautious in the sequential processing of risk. These findings highlight the role of the feedback process and individual traits in risky decision-making under stress.

Towards a Functional Neuromarker of Impulsivity: Feedback-Related Brain Potential during Risky Decision-Making Associated with Self-Reported Impulsivity in a Non-Clinical Sample

Risk-taking is part of the multidimensional nature of impulsivity, consisting of an active engagement in behaviors or choices with potentially undesirable results, with probability as the cost for an expected reward. In order to understand the neurophysiological activity during risky behavior and its relationship with other dimensions of impulsivity, we have acquired event-related-potential (ERP) data and self-reported impulsivity scores from 17 non-clinical volunteers. They underwent high-resolution electroencephalography (HR-EEG) combined with an adapted version of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), and completed the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-10) and the Urgency, Premeditation, Perseverance, Sensation Seeking, Impulsive Behavior Scale (UPPS). The ERP components were sensitive to valence (FRN, P300) and risk/reward magnitude (SPN, RewP). Our main finding evidenced a positive correlation between the amplitude of the P300 component following positive feedback and both the global UPPS score and the (lack of) perseverance UPPS subscale, significant for several adjacent electrodes. This finding might suggest an adaptive form of impulsive behavior, which could be associated to the reduction on the difference of the P300 amplitude following negative and positive feedback. However, further investigation with both larger clinical and non-clinical samples is required.

Adaptation to recent outcomes attenuates the lasting effect of initial experience on risky decisions

Both primarily and recently encountered information have been shown to influence experience-based risky decision making. The primacy effect predicts that initial experience will influence later choices even if outcome probabilities change and reward is ultimately more or less sparse than primarily experienced. However, it has not been investigated whether extended initial experience would induce a more profound primacy effect upon risky choices than brief experience. Therefore, the present study tested in two experiments whether young adults adjusted their risk-taking behavior in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task after an unsignaled and unexpected change point. The change point separated early "good luck" or "bad luck" trials from subsequent ones. While mostly positive (more reward) or mostly negative (no reward) events characterized the early trials, subsequent trials were unbiased. In Experiment 1, the change point occurred after one-sixth or one-third of the trials (brief vs. extended experience) without intermittence, whereas in Experiment 2, it occurred between separate task phases. In Experiment 1, if negative events characterized the early trials, after the change point, risk-taking behavior increased as compared with the early trials. Conversely, if positive events characterized the early trials, risk-taking behavior decreased after the change point. Although the adjustment of risk-taking behavior occurred due to integrating recent experiences, the impact of initial experience was simultaneously observed. The length of initial experience did not reliably influence the adjustment of behavior. In Experiment 2, participants became more prone to take risks as the task progressed, indicating that the impact of initial experience could be overcome. Altogether, we suggest that initial beliefs about outcome probabilities can be updated by recent experiences to adapt to the continuously changing decision environment.

Agreeableness modulates group member risky decision-making behavior and brain activity

When facing difficult decisions, people typically believe that "two heads are better than one". However, findings from previous studies are inconsistent regarding the advantages of decision-making in groups as compared to individual decision-making. We hypothesize that personality traits may modulate risk-taking behavior and brain activity changes during group decision-making. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERP) with a well-validated balloon analogue risk task (BART) paradigm to examine the relationships between personality traits, decision-making behavior, and brain activity patterns when a cohort of male participants make decisions and take risks both in groups and in isolation. We found significantly increased risk-taking behavior and reduced P300 component during group decision-making as compared to individual decision-making only for participants with high Agreeableness, but not for those with low Agreeableness. Moreover, Agreeableness scores correlated with risk-taking behavior and P300 amplitude changes in group decisions. These findings suggest that Agreeableness personality modulates risk-taking behavior and brain activity when people make decisions in groups, which have implications for future group decision research and practice.

Neural Dynamics Underlying the Evaluation Process of Ambiguous Options During Reward-Related Decision-Making

Ambiguous decision-making involves different processes. However, few studies have focused on the evaluation process. In this study, event-related potentials (ERPs) and event-related spectrum perturbation (ERSP) techniques were used to explore the neural dynamics underlying the evaluation process of ambiguous options through an ambiguous choice task. Some important results emerged. We found a preference for lotteries with low ambiguity regardless of reward amount, suggesting that subjects were averse to ambiguity in our paradigm. Our electroencephalography (EEG) results clarified the neural dynamics underlying the evaluation process. In the time domain, lotteries with both a larger reward and lower ambiguity elicited a larger P3. In the time-frequency domain, larger amplitudes of delta activity at 200–400 ms and 500–600 ms post-stimulus were elicited by lotteries with low ambiguity. Moreover, lotteries with a larger reward elicited larger amplitudes of delta activity at 400–600 ms post-stimulus. Our ERPs and ERSP results suggested that individuals in our paradigm evaluated ambiguity and reward separately, and then integrated their evaluation to form subjective values of different lotteries.

Neural mechanism underlying self-controlled feedback on motor skill learning

The present study investigated the neural mechanisms of self-controlled (SC) feedback underlying its learning advantages. Forty-two participants, including 24 females (16.43 ± 2.61 years) and 18 males (17.56 ± 0.86 years), were randomly assigned to a SC or yoked (YK) group. The 6-key-pressing task with a goal movement time was adopted as the experimental task. The behavioral results showed that the SC group demonstrated superior performance in transfer; however, the differences in retention did not reach statistical significance. Event-related potential analyses revealed that the SC group exhibited larger post-stimulus and post-feedback P3 amplitudes than the YK group in the frontal regions; these amplitudes were larger in the YK group in the parietal regions. The post-response error positivity amplitude was found to be larger in the YK group than in the SC group. These results suggest that SC feedback may allow the learner to more actively process the task stimuli and feedback information, and contributes to enhancing the learner's motivation and attachment to the task being practiced. The present study provides a neurophysiological explanation for why SC feedback is effective in learning a new motor skill.

Insensitivity to loss predicts apathy in huntington's disease

BACKGROUND

Apathy is a deficit in goal-directed behavior that significantly affects quality of life and function. It is common in Huntington's disease and other disorders affecting corticostriatal pathways. Deficits in processing of reward, altered effort, and executive dysfunction are associated with apathy in other disorders, but the cognitive processes leading to apathy in Huntington's disease remain largely unknown. A previously reported deficit in learning from losses in Huntington's disease raises the possibility of a hitherto unrecognized mechanism leading to apathy. This study's objective was to delineate the cognitive processes associated with apathy in HD.

METHODS

We tested 51 Huntington's disease participants and 26 controls on a battery of novel and established measures to assess the contribution to apathy in Huntington's disease of executive function, reward value, reward-effort calculations, instrumental learning, and response to reward and loss.

RESULTS

Huntington's disase participants had deficits in instrumental learning with impaired response to loss, but no evidence to suggest altered reward-related behavior or effort. We also saw an executive dysfunction contribution to apathy in Huntington's disease.

DISCUSSION

We report the novel finding that apathy in Huntington's disease is associated with blunted responses to losses and impaired instrumental learning. This association is consistent with the known early degeneration of the indirect pathway and amygdala involvement in apathy in Huntington's disease, but is previously unreported in any disorder. In keeping with the comparative preservation of the ventral striatum and orbitofrontal cortex in Huntington's disease, reward valuation and reward-effort calculations did not contribute to apathy. © 2019 International Parkinson and Movement Disorder Society.

Event-related potentials in response to feedback following risk-taking in the hot version of the Columbia Card Task

Given the importance of risk-taking in individuals' personal and professional life, several behavioral tasks for measuring the construct have been developed. Recently, a new task was introduced, the Columbia Card Task (CCT). This task measures participants' risk levels and establishes how sensitive participants are to gains, losses, and probabilities when taking risk. So far, the CCT has been examined in behavioral studies and in combination with several (neuro)biological techniques. However, no electroencephalography (EEG) research has been done on the task. The present study fills this gap and helps to validate this relatively new experimental task. To this end, n = 126 students were asked to complete self-reports (reward responsiveness, impulsiveness, and sensation-seeking) and to perform the CCT (and other risk tasks) in an EEG setup. The results show that feedback appraisal after risky decision-making in the CCT was accompanied by a feedback-related negativity (FRN) and a P300, which were stronger in response to negative than positive feedback. Correlations between the FRN and P300 difference wave on the one hand and risk-related self-reports and behavior on the other were nonsignificant and small, but were mostly in the expected direction. This pattern did not change after excluding participants with psychiatric/neurological disorders and outliers. Excluding participants with reversed (positive > negative) difference waves strengthened FRN correlations. The impact such individuals can have on the data should be taken into account in future studies. Regarding the CCT in particular, future studies should also address its oddball structure and its masking of true values (censoring).

Impulsivity Moderates Skin Conductance Activity During Decision Making in a Modified Version of the Balloon Analog Risk Task

Individual differences in traits such as impulsivity and processing of risk and reward have been linked to decision making and may underlie divergent decision making strategies. It is, however, unclear whether and how far individual differences in these characteristics jointly influence decision making. Here, we aimed to investigate the roles of skin conductance responses, a psychophysiological marker of risk processing and impulsivity, as assessed by the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale 11 on decision making. Forty-six healthy participants performed a modified version of the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART), where reward and explosion risk are manipulated separately. Participants are informed about whether they play a high versus low reward and high versus low explosion risk condition. The exact risk and reward contingencies are, however, unknown to participants. Participants were less risk-taking under high, compared to low explosion risk and under high reward, compared to low reward on the modified BART, which served as a validation of the paradigm. Risk-taking was negatively related to skin conductance responses under high explosion risk. This relationship was primarily driven by individuals with relatively high levels of impulsivity. However, impulsivity alone was not found to be related to decision making on the modified BART. These results extend evidence that skin conductance responses may guide decision making in situations, where participants are informed about risk level (high vs. low), which might be differentially moderated by different levels of impulsivity.

Event-Related Potentials in Relation to Risk-Taking: A Systematic Review

Event-related potentials (ERPs) have been used to investigate neural mechanisms underlying risk-related decisions over the last 16 years. We aimed to systematically evaluate associations between risk-taking and ERP components elicited during decisions and following feedback. A total of 79 articles identified from PsychINFO and PubMed databases met the inclusion criteria. Selected articles assessed early ERP components (feedback-related negativity/FRN, error-related negativity/ERN, and medial frontal negativity/MFN) and the mid-latency P3 component, all using gambling paradigms that involved selecting between choices of varying risk (e.g., Iowa Gambling Task, Balloon Analogue Risk Task, and two-choice gambling tasks). The P3 component was consistently enhanced to the selection of risky options and when positive feedback (as compared to negative feedback) was provided. Also consistently, the early negative components were found to be larger following feedback indicating monetary losses as compared to gains. In the majority of studies reviewed here, risk was conceptualized in the context of simple economical decisions in gambling tasks. As such, this narrow concept of risk might not capture the diversity of risky decisions made in other areas of everyday experience, for example, social, health, and recreational risk-related decisions. It therefore remains to be seen whether the risk-sensitivity of the ERP components reviewed here generalizes to other domains of life.

Enhanced switching and familial susceptibility for psychosis

INTRODUCTION

Working Memory and Task-Switching are essential components of cognitive control, which underlies many symptoms evident across multiple neuropsychiatric disorders, including psychotic and mood disorders. Vulnerability to these disorders has a substantial genetic component, suggesting that clinically unaffected first-degree relatives may carry some vulnerability-related traits. Converging evidence from animal and human studies demonstrates that dopamine transmission, striatal and frontal brain regions, and attention and switching behaviors are essential components of a multilevel circuit involved in salience, and disruptions in that circuit may lead to features of psychosis. Yet, it is possible that unaffected relatives may also possess characteristics that protect against development of illness. We hypothesized that reduced switch cost in a cued task-switching task, may be a behavioral expression of this "resilience" phenotype that will be observable in unaffected relatives.

METHODS

We tested a large community sample (n = 536) via the web, to assess different subcomponents of cognitive control, including task-switching and working memory, as well as risk-taking, among individuals who report having an affected relative with a psychotic or mood disorder.

RESULTS

Healthy individuals with suspected genetic risk due to a self-reported familial history of a psychotic disorder demonstrated better task-switching performance compared to healthy people without a psychiatrically ill relative and those with a relative with a mood disorder. This result was specific to illness status and task domain, in that individuals with a personal history of depression or anxiety did not show improved task-switching performance, and this improvement was selective to task-switching and not seen in other putative cognitive control domains (working memory or risk taking).

CONCLUSIONS

Although this study has limitations and independent replication is needed, these preliminary findings suggest a potential avenue for understanding susceptibility to these disorders by highlighting possible protective as well as vulnerability-related aspects of risk phenotypes.

Differential effects of real versus hypothetical monetary reward magnitude on risk-taking behavior and brain activity

Human decisions are more easily affected by a larger amount of money than a smaller one. Although numerous studies have used hypothetical money as incentives to motivate human behavior, the validity of hypothetical versus real monetary rewards remains controversial. In the present study, we used event-related potential (ERP) with the balloon analogue risk task to investigate how magnitudes of real and hypothetical monetary rewards modulate risk-taking behavior and feedback-related negativity (FRN). Behavioral data showed that participants were more risk averse after negative feedback with increased magnitude of real monetary rewards, while no behavior differences were observed between large and small hypothetical monetary rewards. Similarly, ERP data showed a larger FRN in response to negative feedback during risk taking with large compared to small real monetary rewards, while no FRN differences were observed between large and small hypothetical monetary rewards. Moreover, FRN amplitude differences correlated with risk-taking behavior changes from small to large real monetary rewards, while such correlation was not observed for hypothetical monetary rewards. These findings suggest that the magnitudes of real and hypothetical monetary rewards have differential effects on risk-taking behavior and brain activity. Real and hypothetical money incentives may have different validity for modulating human decisions.

Real and hypothetical monetary rewards modulate risk taking in the brain

Both real and hypothetical monetary rewards are widely used as reinforcers in risk taking and decision making studies. However, whether real and hypothetical monetary rewards modulate risk taking and decision making in the same manner remains controversial. In this study, we used event-related potentials (ERP) with a balloon analogue risk task (BART) paradigm to examine the effects of real and hypothetical monetary rewards on risk taking in the brain. Behavioral data showed reduced risk taking after negative feedback (money loss) during the BART with real rewards compared to those with hypothetical rewards, suggesting increased loss aversion with real monetary rewards. The ERP data demonstrated a larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) in response to money loss during risk taking with real rewards compared to those with hypothetical rewards, which may reflect greater prediction error or regret emotion after real monetary losses. These findings demonstrate differential effects of real versus hypothetical monetary rewards on risk taking behavior and brain activity, suggesting a caution when drawing conclusions about real choices from hypothetical studies of intended behavior, especially when large rewards are used. The results have implications for future utility of real and hypothetical monetary rewards in studies of risk taking and decision making.

Age-related characteristics of risky decision-making and progressive expectation formation

During daily encounters, it is inevitable that people take risks. Investigating the sequential processing of risk hazards involve expectation formation about outcome contingencies. The present study aimed to explore risk behavior and its neural correlates in sequences of decision making, particularly in old age, which represents a critical period regarding risk-taking propensity. The Balloon Analogue Risk Task was used in an electrophysiological setting with young and elderly age groups. During the task each additional pump on a virtual balloon increased the likelihood of a balloon burst but also increased the chance to collect more reward. Event-related potentials associated with rewarding feedback were analyzed based on the forthcoming decisions (whether to continue or to stop) in order to differentiate between states of expectation towards gain or loss. In the young, the reward positivity ERP component increased as a function of reward contingencies with the largest amplitude for rewarding feedback followed by the decision to stop. In the elderly, however, reward positivity did not reflect the effect of reward structure. Behavioral indices of risk-taking propensity suggest that the performance of the young and the elderly were dissociable only with respect to response times: The elderly was characterized by hesitation and more deliberative decision making throughout the experiment. These findings signify that sequential tracking of outcome contingencies has a key role in cost-efficient action planning and progressive expectation formation.

Escalating risk and the moderating effect of resistance to peer influence on the P200 and feedback-related negativity

Young people frequently socialize together in contexts that encourage risky decision making, pointing to a need for research into how susceptibility to peer influence is related to individual differences in the neural processing of decisions during sequentially escalating risk. We applied a novel analytic approach to analyze EEG activity from college-going students while they completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), a well-established risk-taking propensity assessment. By modeling outcome-processing-related changes in the P200 and feedback-related negativity (FRN) sequentially within each BART trial as a function of pump order as an index of increasing risk, our results suggest that analyzing the BART in a progressive fashion may provide valuable new insights into the temporal neurophysiological dynamics of risk taking. Our results showed that a P200, localized to the left caudate nucleus, and an FRN, localized to the left dACC, were positively correlated with the level of risk taking and reward. Furthermore, consistent with our hypotheses, the rate of change in the FRN was higher among college students with greater self-reported resistance to peer influence.

Global-local visual processing impacts risk taking behaviors, but only at first

We investigated the impact of early visual processing on decision-making during unpredictable, risky situations. Participants undertook Navon’s (1977) task and attended to either global letters or local letters only, following which they completed the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). It was observed that global-focused individuals made more balloon pumps during the BART (i.e., took more risk), whereas local-focused individuals took less risk, albeit only initially. The theory of predictive and reactive control systems (PARCS) provides an excellent account of the data. Implications and future directions are discussed.