Paying out one versus paying out all trials and the decrease in behavioral and brain activity in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task

摘要

Both pay out for all the trials (pay-all) and pay out for only one randomly selected trial (pay-one), are widely used in economics experiments to elicit choices from study participants. However, whether pay-all and pay-one payments modulate risk-taking and decision-making in the same manner remains controversial. In the present study, we used event-related potentials (ERPs) with the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) to investigate the effects of the pay-all and pay-one payments on dynamic sequential decision-making behavior under uncertainty and brain activity. Behavioral data showed an increased uncertainty aversion, especially after negative feedback (balloon explosion) during the BART in the pay-all condition, as compared to those in the pay-one condition. The ERP data demonstrated a larger feedback-related negativity (FRN) in response to the balloons that exploded during decision-making in the pay-all condition, as compared to those in the pay-one condition. In addition, in the pay-all condition, the FRN amplitude elicited by the explosion of the balloon correlated with the future decision-making behavior, although this correlation was not observed in the pay-one condition. In contrast, the P300 component was unresponsive to payment method manipulation. These findings demonstrate the differential effects of the pay-all versus the pay-one payments on decision-making behavior under uncertainty and brain activity, suggesting that the payment method plays an important role in dynamic decision-making studies.