Risk taking personality traits on affect processing during modified versions of the Iowa Gambling Task. Technical Report 2016-02

The Iowa Gamb

ling Task (IGT) is widely used to assess the role of

emotion in decision making. However, there is only indirect

evidence to support that the task measures emotion. There are

inconsistencies in performance within in healthy populations who

display risk tak

ing traits. Two hundred and fifty participants were

assessed for psychopathy, sensation seeking, and impulsiveness.

The IGT was compared with modified versions that directly

manipulated emotion within in the task by indexing reward and

punishment cards wit

h images varying in emotional content.

Participants continued to learn to avoid risky decks in all versions

of the IGT. The manipulation of emotional content within the task

did affect performance: fearful images contributed to greater risky

deck selection

s. Across the tasks, psychopathy showed the

strongest relationship to risky deck selections, and lower levels of

psychopathy was associated decreased risky deck selections.

However, psychopathy did not affect learning in the modified

versions. Exploratory analysis on image valance found that

negative images (compared to neutral) benefited learning for

individuals with higher levels of psychopathy. Discussion will

center on the benefits of manipulating emotion directly within the

task as a means to assess th

e validity of the IGT.