Direct versus indirect emotional consequences on the Iowa Gambling Task

The Iowa Gambling Task has been widely used in the assessment of neurological patients with ventro-mesial frontal lesions. The Iowa Group has claimed that the Gambling Task is too complex for participants to follow using cognition alone, so that participants must rely on emotion-based learning systems (somatic markers). The present study investigates whether similar tasks can be performed without direct somatic markers. In a 'Firefighter' task closely matched to the classic Gambling Task, participants evaluate the performance of others--so that they experience reward and punishment indirectly. In contrast to the gradual improvement in performance seen on the classic Iowa Gambling Task, participants on the Firefighter Task showed no learning effect, mirroring the performance of patients with ventro-mesial frontal lesions, and suggesting that the task is very difficult to perform without direct somatic marker information. The use of this task as empirical measure of 'empathy' are discussed.