Data_Sheet_1_Decision-Making Under Risk and Uncertainty by Substance Abusers and Healthy Controls.pdf

Cognitive impairment characterized by high impulsivity and risk-taking has been correlated with substance-related disorders. However, it is unclear if the decision-making process is well known upon consideration of factors such as uncertainty environments, risk, and time manipulation in different decision-making procedures. The main objective of this study was to identify behavioral differences between substance abusers and healthy control participants in a behavioral test battery, including (1) two uncertainty decision-making tasks, the Balloon Analog Risk Task (BART) and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT, trial 1–40); (2) three risk-taking tasks, the Columbia Card Task Hot version (CCT-hot), Columbia Card Task Cold version (CCT-cold), and the IGT (trial 41–100); and (3) an impulsivity task, the Delay Discounting task (DD). The second objective looked at how the six behavioral tests correlate. We worked with a sample of 54 adult participants (Substance abusers: n = 28; Healthy controls: n = 26). An anonymous survey website was created to execute all the cognitive tasks. The results showed no statistically significant differences between the groups in any of the tasks. However, the results showed an upward trend of impulsive (i.e., steeply discounting curve) and risk-taking behaviors (i.e., a low learning curve in IGT) in substance abuse participants. The factor analysis results showed four different main factors: (1) risk-taking task in the IGT (trial 40–100), (2) uncertainty task in BART, (3) impulsivity in DD, IGT (trial 1–40), and (4) deliberate process in the Columbia card task (cold and hot). We conclude that factors such as the uncertainty tasks in the BART and the first block of IGT trials, the risk cues in the CCT tasks (i.e., number of loss, number of gains, and loss cards), and the time to delivery in the DD task, can affect the complex decision-making process in both clinical and healthy groups.

认知障碍表现为高度冲动和冒险行为，已被与物质相关障碍相关联。然而，在考虑不确定性环境、风险和时间操控等不同决策过程中的因素时，决策过程是否被充分了解尚不明确。本研究的主要目标是识别物质滥用者和健康对照组在行为测试电池中的行为差异，包括（1）两项不确定性决策任务：气球类比风险任务（BART）和爱荷华赌博任务（IGT，第1-40次试验）；（2）三项冒险行为任务：哥伦比亚卡片任务热版（CCT-hot）、哥伦比亚卡片任务冷版（CCT-cold）和IGT（第41-100次试验）；以及（3）一项冲动行为任务：延迟折扣任务（DD）。第二个目标是研究六项行为测试之间的相关性。我们与54名成年参与者（物质滥用者：n=28；健康对照组：n=26）合作。创建了一个匿名调查网站以执行所有认知任务。结果显示，在所有任务中，两组之间均无统计学意义的差异。然而，结果显示，在物质滥用参与者中，冲动行为（即，陡峭的折扣曲线）和冒险行为（即在IGT中低的学习曲线）呈上升趋势。因素分析结果显示出四个不同的主要因素：（1）IGT中的冒险任务（第40-100次试验），（2）BART中的不确定性任务，（3）DD、IGT（第1-40次试验）中的冲动性，以及（4）哥伦比亚卡片任务中的深思熟虑过程（冷版和热版）。我们得出结论，诸如BART中的不确定性任务和IGT第一阶段的试验、CCT任务中的风险线索（即，损失次数、收益次数和损失卡片），以及DD任务中的交付时间等因素，可能会影响临床组和健康组复杂决策过程。