Joanne Jung

The Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is widely implemented to assess decision-making deficits in adolescents, a group notable for risk-taking and mental health concerns. While popular, there have been conflicting findings regarding overall performance (number of advantageous minus disadvantageous choices) in clinical populations and what specific decision-making processes may yield these differences. To address these discrepancies, the recently developed Value plus Sequential Exploration (VSE) model has been shown to fit participant data best and recover parameters more accurately relative to other computational models of the IGT, as well as meaningfully differentiate between healthy controls and patient groups. We analyzed previously gathered data from 181 typically developing participants aged 9-23. For group-based analyses, these participants were categorized by the following: no major internalizing or externalizing concerns, internalizing concerns, externalizing concerns, and both internalizing/externalizing concerns. For regression analyses, the spectra were used as predictors in a model of the parameters including relevant control variables. Participant choices were run through the VSE model using open-source code in MATLAB, resulting in estimates of parameters that reflect five decision-making processes. No significant differences were observed between internalizing/externalizing scores and the five parameters. However, there was a significant effect of age on the five parameters. This result could have been due, at least in part to sampling and the fact that our participants were a relatively healthy sample. A wider distribution of internalizing and externalizing scores could perhaps lead to more meaningful differences, better specifying the decision-making process in clinical populations.