The notice includes instructions on where and how to complete the annual report. The Social and Charitable Gambling Unit administers Iowa Code Chapter 99B, which regulates games of skill or chance, raffles, bingo, social gambling and amusement devices. Qualified organizations may obtain a social or charitable gambling license to conduct fund. The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is based on the assumption that a decision maker is equally motivated to seek reward and avoid punishment, and that decision making is governed solely by the intertemporal attribute (i.e., preference for an option that produces an immediate outcome instead of one that yields a delayed outcome is believed to reflect risky decision making and is considered a deficit).

Step 1: The experiment design, what is required?

Iowa Gambling Task, what is required?

We will need two images, one of the back of a card and the other a slightly darker version to indicate that the card has been selected.

Instructions on screen? For this tutorial yes.

How many presentations of the stimuli are there? In this tutorial we are just going to run through the it 10 times ..

How many stimuli are there? Each presentation is made up of four cards.

What is the participant required to do, how do they interact with the task? They have to press 1,2,3,or 4 to select the required deck

Do we want to provide feedback? Yes, they will need to see how much they have won or lost, and the selected deck is indicated. So to make it simple we will use four feedbacks.

What data do we want to save? What deck was selected, wins and losses.

End screen? Yes, just to say thank you

Anything else. Need to keep a running total of wins and losses, so will have to use an inline script to define variables and another to calculate running totals.

Each of the answers above relates to an item from the toolbar.

How is the Task Structured?

The Iowa Gambling Task is an incredibly simple test. The participant is presented with four virtual decks of cards if playing on a computer, or four real decks if doing the test in the physical domain. The participant is informed that the outcome of each choice, that being which deck they choose to draw a card from, will reward or penalize them. The aim of the game is to raise as much money as possible through maximizing the rewards and minimizing the number of penalties incurred. After several plays on each deck the participant should understand and form an intuition of how to proceed in the game. The key here is that you must use this specific set up for the test. However, you can notice the patterns of behavior while playing online blackjack or playing roulette.

Common Findings Upon Completion of the Task

Iowa Gambling Task Professional Manual

The majority of participants sample a few cards from each deck to gain an understanding of the game mechanics. Once an intuition has been developed, usually at about 20-30 selections into the game, the player is generally very good at selecting the cards from the decks that will most efficiently build their reward/bank balance in the game. However, the test is designed to identify patients with an orbitofrontal cortex dysfunction (OFCD). In the case a patient playing the Iowa Gambling Test has an OFCD, the likeliness is they will fail to recognize the decks that reward them the most efficient and will continue to persevere with bad decks. Furthermore, researchers are able to monitor the reaction time of each choice on the player. Healthy patients are witnessed as displaying a stress reaction to hovering over bad decks, even after just 10 selections into the game. By contrast, players with neurological dysfunctions continue to choose outcomes that yield high immediate rewards in spite of higher losses in the future.

Bechara and Damasio explain these findings in great detail. The key conclusion relates to the somatic marker hypothesis, which ascertains that key decision making is often made in the heat of emotions and it is emotions that ultimately guide behavior and decision making. This obviously has particular relevance to gambling psychology which we will attempt to bring into the equation in the following section. If you want a quick break from the dense psychological analysis, have a read of this relatable article on how gamblers try to get good luck.

Can the Iowa Gambling Task Identify Gambling Addiction?

It seems like a very logical conclusion to make given the results of healthy and dysfunctional patients. The apparent inability to recognize risk whilst making a decision, and being blinded by the potential to yield larger immediate gains is a familiar problem to anyone who understands gambling addiction. Participants who are constantly choosing a deck that will yield higher gains but comes with a much higher chance of a high penalty are more likely to become gambling addicts. Players who recognize that small incremental gains at a low-risk desk are better for them in the long-run are less likely to be gambling addicts. This simple hypothesis has become the foundation of this test and remains a large reason why it is attributed to pushing advancements in the assistance of gambling addiction.

Iowa Gambling Task Instructions

What Other Lessons Can We Learn from the Iowa Gambling Test

Whilst the conclusions drawn from the Iowa Gambling test is indeed very fascinating, they are by no means the limit of this psychological phenomenon. The test itself can be used to extrapolate many conclusions about the process of human decision making. Below we have selected some of the most interesting conclusions found by studies of the Iowa Gambling Test. In particular, there is a fundamental need to explain the connection between emotion and decision-making.

• Gain and loss frequency are in fact the most crucial features of a gambling game when determining which one to choose. Subjects in the Iowa Gambling Test who are of a healthy pre-disposition were increasingly more likely to choose the deck that gave the most wins, despite the size of the reward.
• Having the ability to memorize stuff and rules lead to favorable decision making. Subjects who are able to work something out, and at the same time remember crucial details about a task were far more likely to succeed in the Iowa Gambling Task.
• Participants who take fewer drugs either medication or recreational performed far better under the pressure of the Iowa Gambling Task. It is well-known that recreational drug use has an adverse effect on the psychology of the individual. With this in mind, it explains a lot of the detrimental connections between drugs and gambling addiction.
• Anxiety and other mental conditions of a similar nature tend to cause a negative impact on our ability to make good decisions. With the pressure of reward and risk, participants with high-anxiety are often likely to avoid risk all together at all costs. This can lead to a high opportunity cost from missing out on potential gains.

A Few Final Words

Iowa Gambling Task

The Iowa Gambling Task is by all measures a fascinating concept and study of the human decision-making process. The results gained from such a study can indeed be utilized and deployed to better understand gambling addiction and greater mysteries around the human psyche. For more wonderful reports on psychology in gambling, check out our article on the Gamblers Fallacy. If you think that you may be developing or already have unhealthy attitudes while gambling, read our guide to responsible gambling.

Iowa Gambling Task Instructions List

You can find out more about the Iowa Gambling Task here.