Keywords: metacognition, gambling, affect.
In the deck there are 10 cards. Nine cards are good and one is bad. You will win one dollar for each "good" card you turn but if you turn the bad card you will lose everything and the game will end. You will get to keep whatever money you win, so try to play as well as possible. Choose one card at a time by clicking on it.Subjects were also told that the bad or "disaster" card was denoted as the Joker and was randomly placed within the set of ten cards. We also highlighted to subjects that they would get to play only once, and could stop at any time to collect their prize. While the subject performed the task, the experimenter stood behind her recording the number of cards turned over. The task ended when the subject either stopped or hit the "disaster" card (9 card). At that time, winners collected their prize, and all subjects completed a debriefing questionnaire (see below). Subjects were randomly assigned to either playing the game or observing another player (a confederate). Subjects in the observer condition heard the same instructions in the company of a student from our lab who served as a confederate. Observers were then told that they would be in another room watching the confederate play. We explained that only the confederate would play and potentially win a prize. From the observing room, observers were able to see the computer screen, the confederate, and the experimenter; they could also hear the "winning" tones. We stressed to observers that their answers had no bearing on the choices made by the confederate and that the confederate could not hear what was said in the observing room. Each time the stimulus screen appeared, the confederate allowed approximately 10 sec to pass before making the next choice to ensure the observer had adequate time to answer the question "should he/she [confederate] turn over the next card?" The experimenter recorded the observer's response in a sheet of paper. The question was asked each trial until the observer answered that the confederate should stop or that she should turn over the 9 card. To guarantee that observers could go up to nine cards if they chose to, the confederate always turned over eight cards, independently of the observer's choice. When the game ended, the confederate was given 8 dollars, and the observer was asked to complete the debriefing questionnaire. Debriefing questionnaire: To assess whether subjects trusted the instructions, we asked subjects whether they had believed the game to be real (as opposed to being "rigged") and that money would be awarded. To assess their understanding of choices as applied to the task, we asked the following two questions in fixed order:
Group: | ||
Question | Actor | Observer |
Game was not rigged | 4.89 (0.32) | 4.80 (0.40) |
Best strategy is to turn up 5 cards | 3.80 (1.10) | 3.66 (1.15) |
Best strategy is to turn up 8 cards | 3.42 (1.26) | 3.36 (1.42) |
Decision to stop was based on probability | 3.15 (1.39) | 3.84(1.07)* |
Decision to stop was based on feeling | 3.63(1.22) | 3.93(1.07) |
Empathize with player | n/a | 4.31 (1.06) |
Only data for subjects with score higher than 3 are reported (n=85), as subjects with scores of 3 or lower were excluded from all the analyses. | ||
* p .05 |
Group: | |||
Question | Actor | Observer-Should | Observer-Would |
Game was not rigged | 4.84 (0.37) | 4.79 (0.43) | 4.88 (0.33) |
Best strategy is to turn up 5 cards | 3.42 (1.02) | 3.64 (1.01) | 3.88 (0.86) |
Best strategy is to turn up 8 cards | 3.84 (1.07) | 3.43 (1.34) | 3.41 (1.46) |
Decision to stop was based on probability | 2.79 (1.32)* | 3.57 (1.40) | 3.71 (1.21) |
Decision to stop was based on feeling | 4.11(0.94) | 3.57 (1.34) | 4.00 (1.12) |
Empathize with player | n/a | 3.50 (1.16) | 4.29 (0.77)* |
Only data for subjects with score higher than 3 are reported, as subjects with scores of 3 or lower were excluded from all the analyses. | |||
* p .05 |