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. 2013 Oct;55(7):771-776.
doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.06.009.

Evaluating the Iowa Gambling Task as a Direct Assessment of Impulsivity with Low-Income Children

Jessica D Burdick  1 , Amanda L Roy, C Cybele Raver
Affiliations

Evaluating the Iowa Gambling Task as a Direct Assessment of Impulsivity with Low-Income Children

Jessica D Burdick et al. Pers Individ Dif. 2013 Oct.

Abstract

This study examined performance on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994) as a measure of low-income school-aged children's affective decision-making and considered its utility as a direct indicator of impulsivity. One hundred and ninety-three 8-11 year olds performed a computerized version of the Iowa Gambling Task, a validated measure of decision-making. Multi-level modeling was used to examine children's performance over the course of the task, with age, gender, and teachers' ratings of child impulsivity (BIS-11; Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995) used to predict children's Iowa Gambling performance. Higher impulsivity scores predicted a decrease in slope of Iowa Gambling performance, indicating students rated higher on impulsivity chose more disadvantageously across the task blocks. Results support evidence of the validity of the Iowa Gambling Task as a measure of impulsivity in low-income minority children.

Keywords: Decision-making; Iowa Gambling Task; impulsivity; reward sensitivity.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Average LTC scores by block.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Average IFL scores by block.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Predicted LTC slopes across blocks for high (+1 S.D.) and low (-1 S.D.) BIS ratings.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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