奖惩频率对3～5岁幼儿完成博弈任务的影响

Characterization of Children’s Affective Decision Making: Sensitivity to the Frequency of Punishment and Reward

通过对情感决策的常用研究工具——标准爱荷华博弈任务进行了得失总量不变而频率改变的修改,并使之适合于年幼的3～5岁儿童,可以比较幼儿在不同奖惩频率任务中的表现,从而考察奖惩频率对幼儿情感决策的影响。对120名3～5岁幼儿在四种不同类型的任务中的表现进行分析后,所得实验结果如下:(1)儿童对惩罚和奖励频率的变化比较敏感:正向博弈任务中,"有利纸牌不变,不利纸牌的惩罚总量不变,只增加不利纸牌的惩罚频率"可以使3～5岁儿童完成博弈任务的成绩有显著提高;逆向博弈任务中,"不利纸牌不变,有利纸牌的奖惩总量不变,而有利纸牌奖励频率的增加"能促使4～5岁幼儿更多更快地做出正确选择。(2)幼儿的情感决策能力在3～4岁时期发展迅速,而在4～5岁时仍然有较快发展。

Affective decision making is an individual ability to make choice under risk and uncertainty. The Iowa Gambling Task （IGT） developed by Bechara has been widely used to assess decision behavior under uncertainty. The original IGT was designed to examine the decision making that is profitable in the future. In IGT participants have to develop a long-term profitable monetary scenario in a situation of uncertainty and a conflict between the chance of encountering an immediate large reward （US$100） in two long-term loosing decks （A and B; US$250 perl0 cards） and the chance of encountering an immediate small reward （US$50） in two long-term winning decks （C and D; US$＋250 per 10 cards）. According to the research, it is found that normal adults choose more from the good decks while individuals with pre-frontal ventromedial cortex （VM-PFC） never learned to choose more from the good decks. Bechara consider that patients with VM-PFC opting for choices that yield high immediate gains in spite of higher future losses. While there is a large amount of research on the IGT in the adult population, there is less work done on children. In order to examine whether young children would show a similar preference for immediate prospects, the modification IGT adopted considering children unique features. Basically, development of affective decision making was studied in 120 children at the age of 3 and 5 using modified IGT. Results shows young children are inclined to make advantageous choices, in particular, when the probability of punishment is higher. Children act sensitively towards the frequency of rewards and punishments. Compared with the age of 3 and 4, the study also implies that the age of 4 and 5 ones could make more advantageous choice by increasing the frequency of reward in advantage cards. In conclusion, both standards and reversed tasks show children＇s decision making deficits might be associated with sensitivity to frequency of punishment. However, this is not noticeable among younger aged group. The abilities of affective decision making be developed extremely fast between 3 and 4 years old.