SOMATIC-MARKER HYPOTHESIS

The Somatic-Marker Hypothesis: How Decisions Are Made In The Face Of an Uncertain Outcome

Somatic Marker Hypothesis

Decision-making often occurs in the face of uncertainty about whether one's choices will lead to benefit or harm. The somatic marker hypothesis is a neurobiological theory of how decisions are made with an uncertain outcome. This theory holds that such decisions are aided by emotions, in the form of bodily states, which arise during the deliberation of future consequences and that mark different options of behavior as being advantageous or disadvantageous. This process involves interplay between neural systems that trigger emotional bodily states and neural systems that are the map of these emotions or bodily states (Carter, 2004).

The somatic marker hypothesis, developed by Damasio (1999), has been outstanding at the time to understand the role of emotion in decision-making arises that the consequences of a decision there is a certain emotional reaction that is subjective, meaning it can "experience", while somatic, i.e. reactions resulting in muscle, neuroendocrine and neurophysiological. This emotional response in turn can be associated with impact, whether negative or positive stimuli or sets of defining a situation, that they repeat certain constancy over time and causing the response. This mechanism of association is that it produces what Damasio calls "somatic marker" that is defined as "a body change that reflects an emotional state, whether positive or negative, can influence the decisions taken at one time. So it is suggested that the emotional reaction goes from being a mere consequence, for example, a negative decision to influence the decision itself, allowing the anticipation of consequences and guiding the final decision process (Damasio, 1999).

In this regard it is stated that somatic markers can provide unconscious signals that "facilitate and contribute to decision making" even without the subjects may explain why their strategy. Iowa Gambling Task The way in which this occurs has been studied extensively in the test IGT (Iowa Gambling Task), which is that a subject must choose from four stacks of cards, depending on this money get symbolic rewards and punishments so that long-term two piles ride to lose while the other two to win. These tests have been conducted mostly through the study of changes in electrodermal activity (levels and skin conductance response) produced by the decision-making situation (Damasio, 1991). The work of Bechara et al (1996) have demonstrated that normal subjects show greater skin conductance responses when the consequences of their choices - gains or losses - are higher. However, the greatest asset of this research lays in finding electroheat anticipatory responses, i.e. appeared just before the subjects made the choice. The researchers found that subjects who chose the piles of cards with higher earnings were more conductance response before choosing disadvantageous decks (with lower earnings), which has been interpreted as an anticipatory bodily signal that guides the avoid the subject deck. You showed that anticipatory skin conductance responses of lower intensity were associated with the choice of letters so disadvantageous to poorer on the task, a situation that ...