Adapting a Decision-Making Task to Explore its ERP Correlates Through Adolescence

描述(由申请人提供)：在风险条件下做出有利决定的能力与青少年犯罪、酗酒和吸毒以及危险的性行为等危害健康的行为负相关。尽管之前的研究人员强调了个体差异的重要性以及有利决策的发展过程，但他们的大部分研究都依赖于复杂的任务，这些任务旨在与现实生活中的风险决策并行。然而，这些任务的复杂性使得解构结果效价、概率水平和结果大小对决策的影响以及检验决策的事件相关电位(ERP)变得具有挑战性。因此，决策的基本过程没有得到很好的理解。在拟议的研究中，我们将修改现有的决策任务--CUPS任务，以便与ERP技术一起使用。CUPS任务评估在纯粹的收益和损失的背景下做出有利决定的能力。每一次试验都包括一个有一定收益或损失的无风险选择和一个可能增加或减少收益或损失的不确定或有风险的选择。对风险选择的概率水平和结果大小的因数处理产生基于特定和风险选择的相对期望值的风险有利、风险等价或风险不利的试验。将在150名参与者(75名女性)中对修改后的任务的行为表现(例如，风险不利选择的比例)和电生理表现(例如，确定的事件相关电位成分的幅度)进行评估，这些参与者平均分布在三个年龄组：儿童期晚期(10-11岁)、青春期早期(13-14岁)和青春期晚期(16-17岁)。修改后的任务将通过检查该任务的行为和电生理表现与相关指标(如风险决策的行为指数)之间的关联来验证。此外，由此产生的数据集将提供一个机会，以检查从儿童期后期到青春期后期的潜在决策过程的发展。人们相信，对决策过程的研究将导致开发出更精确的解释模型，将特定的决策过程与后来的健康危险行为联系起来。因此，这项研究有可能有助于及早确定儿童和青少年以后的健康危险行为的风险，并为这些风险青少年确定潜在的目标或预防性干预服务。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to make advantageous decisions under conditions of risk is negatively related to health-risk behaviors such as delinquency, alcohol and drug use, and risky sexual behaviors. Although prior researchers have emphasized the importance of individual differences in and the developmental course of advantageous decision making, much of their research has relied on complex tasks designed to parallel real-life risky decision making. However, the complexity of these tasks has made it challenging to deconstruct the effects of outcome valence, probability level, and outcome magnitude on decision making and to examine the event-related potential (ERP) correlates of decision making. Thus, the underlying processes of decision making are not well understood. In the proposed study, we will modify an existing decision-making task, the Cups Task, for use with ERP techniques. The Cups Task assesses the ability to make advantageous decisions within the context of pure gains and losses. Each trial consists of a riskless choice that has a certain gain or loss and an uncertain, or risky, choice that has the potential to increase or decrease the gain or loss. A factorial manipulation of the probability level and outcome magnitude for the risky choices yields trials that are risk advantageous, risk equivalent, or risk disadvantageous based on the relative expected value of the certain and risky choices. Behavioral performance (e.g., proportion of risk-disadvantageous choices) and electrophysiological performance (e.g., amplitude of identified ERP components) on the modified task will be assessed in 150 participants (75 females) equally distributed across three age groups: late childhood (ages 10-11), early adolescence (ages 13-14), and late adolescence (ages 16-17). The modified task will be validated by examining the associations between behavioral and electrophysiological performance on this task and related measures such as behavioral indices of risky decision making. Additionally, the resulting dataset will provide an opportunity to examine the development of the underlying processes of decision making from late childhood to late adolescence. It is believed that research examining the processes underlying decision making will lead to the development of more precise explanatory models linking specific decision-making processes to later health-risk behaviors. Thus, this vein of research has the potential to aid in the early identification of children and adolescents at risk for later health-risk behaviors and to identify potential targets or preventive intervention services for these at-risk youth.