title: A versatile task for assessing decision-making abilities: the truck dispatcher framework.
abstract: In neuropsychological decision-making research, several different tasks are used to measure decision-making competences in patients and healthy study participants. Unfortunately, the existing tasks are often inflexible for modification, use different scenarios, and include several gambling cues. Therefore, comparisons between participants' performances in different tasks are difficult. We developed the Truck Dispatcher Framework (TDF), in which different decision-making tasks can be designed within one unitary, flexible, and real-world-oriented story line. To test the story line, TDF analogues of three standard decision-making tasks (Game of Dice Task, Probability-Associated Gambling task, Iowa Gambling Task) were developed. In three studies with brain-healthy participants, the behavior in standard decision-making tasks and the TDF analogues of those tasks were compared. Similar behaviors indicate that the TDF tasks measure decision making appropriately. Thus, the TDF is recommended for experimental and clinical research because it allows for examining decision-making competences in tasks with different demands that take place within one unitary story line.
authors.affiliation: a General Psychology: Cognition, University of Duisburg-Essen , Duisburg , Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Schiebener
authors.forename: Frank Paul
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Schulte
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hofmann
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brand
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D003658:Decision Making, Computer-Assisted; D005260:Female; D005717:Games, Experimental; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011336:Probability; D011340:Problem Solving; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012309:Risk-Taking; D014186:Transportation / Q000191:economics; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Game of Dice Task; Iowa Gambling Task; Probability-Associated Gambling task; Truck Dispatcher Framework; decision-making task