Older Adults as Adaptive Decision Makers: Evidence From the Iowa Gambling Task.

Abstract

Older adults process emotional information differently than younger adults and may demonstrate less of a negativity bias on cognitive tasks. The Iowa Gambling Task designed by A. Bechara, H. Damasio, D. Tranel, and A. R. Damasio (1997) has been used to examine the integration of emotion and cognition in a risky-choice decision task and may give insight into differences in the decision-making strategies in younger and older adults. Eighty-eight younger adults (18-34 years) and 67 older adults (65-88 years) completed the Iowa Gambling Task. Using a theoretical decomposition of the task designed by J. R. Busemeyer and J. C. Stout (2002), the authors found that both groups were successful at solving the task but used very different strategies that reflected each group's strength. For younger adults, that strength was learning and memory. For older adults, that strength was an accurate representation of wins and losses (valence).

Older adults make less advantageous decisions than younger adults: Cognitive and psychological correlates

“…Wood and colleagues (2005) also used the IGT to assess decision-making in younger (18-34 year old) and older (65-88 year old) adults. While Wood et al (2005) did not report any significant age-related differences in advantageous decisions, the mean performance for older adults was non-significantly lower than that of younger adults and older adults used different strategies than younger adults when learning the task. Finally, MacPherson and colleagues (2002) reported no significant differences in advantageous decision-making between younger and older adults; however, as pointed out by Denburg et al (2005), older adults had generally flatter learning curves compared with younger adults, which seems to suggest some impairment in the ability to learn to make more advantageous decisions over time.…”

“…In addition, Denburg did not find any associations between the IGT and performance on cognitive tests, while we reported an association with the average z-score across all nine cognitive domains assessed. Furthermore, Wood et al (Wood et al, 2005) found that older and younger adults employ different cognitive strategies in regards to decisionmaking as assessed by the IGT. Analyses of our participants also revealed that different cognitive processes are associated with decision-making in older versus younger adults.…”

“…Recent studies using the IGT suggest that decision-making in older adults is associated with different cognitive processes than in younger adults (Wood et al, 2005), and there may be some evidence that at least some older adults make less advantageous decisions than younger adults (Deakin et al, 2004;Denburg et al, 2005). Denburg and colleagues (2005) found that older adults (56 -85 years) made generally less advantageous decisions compared with their sample of younger adults (26 -55 years).…”

O Iowa Gambling Task: uma revisão crítica

“…Outros autores, no entanto, não aleatorizam os baralhos (e.g. Davis, Patte, Tweed, & Curtis, 2007;Wood, Busemeyer, Koling, Cox, & Davis, 2005), alegando ausência de impacto significativo no desempenho do efeito de ordem ABCD (Stout, Rodawalt, & Siemers, 2001).…”

Emotion, affect, and risk communication with older adults: challenges and opportunities

“…For instance, automatic processes may impede deliberation on important factors such as the credibility and relevance of information (e.g., has a piece of medical information come from a physician or a tabloid?). Wood et al 47 suggest that lack of insight into automatic processes in some older adults may make these individuals less attentive to negative emotion or affect signaling red flags (e.g., scams) and result in less loss aversion. Older adults may be less socially vigilant when evaluating the intentions and abilities of physicians and salespeople.…”