Integrative Essay Redo

• In an ingenious experiment, Damasio demonstrated that subconsciously generated physical changes in the body significantly precede a person’s deliberate and rational thinking. (See Iowa Gambling Task) In this experiment, participants were given four decks of cards along with $2,000 in play money.
• Much of the support for Damasio's hypothesis stems from a study involving the Iowa Gambling Task, a game in which participants select a card from one of four playing card decks. On every card, participants win play money. Two of the decks always award $100 and the others give $50.
• The Iowa gambling task is a psychological task thought to simulate real life decision making.It was introduced by Bechara, Damasio, Tranel and Anderson (1994), then researchers at the University of Iowa.
• Damasio has argued that damage to the VMPFC and other structures involved in the representation and regulation of body-state (including amygdala, insula, somatosensory cortex, cingulate, basal ganglia and brain-stem nuclei) leads to impaired decision-making because the somatic marking system can no longer be activated (see Fig. 1 which outlines the proposed ‘somatic marker’ network.

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PSY 115A

Intuition and gut feelings have a firm biological basis, said Dr. Antonio Damasio, the lead author of a paper describing the experiment in the current issue of the journal Science. Damasio, a neuroscientist at the University of Iowa College of Medicine in Iowa City, carried out the research with his wife, Dr. Hanna Damasio and two colleagues.

Damasio’s Error

In Antonio Damasio’s book, Descartes Error, he sets forth the thesis that: '...feelings are a powerful influence on reason, that the brain systems required by the former are enmeshed in those needed by the latter, and that such specific systems are interwoven with those which regulate the body' (245). Damasio’s hypothesis is important because it leads the reader to answer other questions such as the effectiveness of one to make decisions or solve problems, and whether or not 'the placebo effect' is effective in treating sick patients. The importance of his hypothesis is that it opens up, for exploration, the topic of the brain, mind, emotions, and the body and how, or if they are connected. Damasio himself even says that his hypothesis is, 'offered in the hope that they may attract further investigation and be subject to revision as new findings'(245).

The evidence Damasio uses in his book does not adequately support his hypothesis. Take, for example, the case of the man who had prefrontal damage and was visiting the laboratory one day while it was snowing and the roads were frozen over. When asked about how the driving had been in it, the patient replied,

'Prompt and dispassionate: It had been fine, no different from the usual, except that it had called for some attention to the proper procedures for driving on ice..... He even had a particular case in point, that a woman driving ahead of him who had entered a patch of ice, skidded, and rather than gently pulling away from the tailspin, had panicked, hit the breaks, and gone zooming into a ditch... Apparently unperturbed by this hair-raising scene, my patient crossed the ice patch and drove calmly and surely ahead. He told me all this with the same tranquility with which he obviously had experienced the incident' (192-193).

The next day, the same patient, when asked to decide on the next date that would be best for him to come back, it took him several minutes to ponder the choices. Damasio uses the example of this patient to say that the frontal lobe was damaged as well as the somatic-marker mechanism. He states, 'An automated somatic-marker mechanism would have helped the patient in more ways than one' (194). The fact that this patient had frontal lobe damage probably had an effect on his decisions, but this example is not proof enough that the damage is the only reason for his ambivalence. Although Damasio offers proof that Elliot’s actions were in fact altered after his frontal lobe was damaged, this does not prove that everyone else who incurs frontal lobe damage would be have the same way in this particular situation. The patient could have grown up in a violent home atmosphere and has somewhat been desensitized to what most people would consider gruesome or dramatic events. Maybe the patient was too busy thinking about something else that what had really happened never occurred to him fully. Since so little is know about the brain, it is hard to tell what other influences were acting on the person besides their brain.

Another example or evidence that Damasio uses, is the gambling experiment. In this experiment, four decks of cards are laid out in front of the subject. The subject is given $2,000 of play money, and told that he has to try to lose as little as he can and win as much as he can.

Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiments

'The Player does not know the total number of turns required to end the game. The Player is told that turning any and every card will result in earning a sum of money, and that every now and then turning some cards will result in both earning money and having to pay a sum of money to the experimenter. Neither the amounts of gain or loss in any card, nor the cards’ connection to a specific deck, nor the order of their appearance is disclosed at the outset..... and the subject is not allowed to keep written notes' (212-213).

Antonio Damasio Gambling Experiment Theory

Most normal people would search the four decks, looking for a pattern, then when they found ones with high rewards; they begin to keep using those decks. After about thirty tries on those decks, and after losing some money on the draws, they then switch and begin using the other two decks. This is probably because they are scared or intimidated by these high-risk decks. Whereas, those subjects with frontal lobe damage, did not seem to mind the big losses in the high money decks. They just kept turning them over despite the losses they incurred. (213-214). This experiment, is not really strong in support of Damasio’s hypothesis either because the researchers cannot be certain that those subject, to which they are testing are all the same, or that they had the same familial background. The researchers could not be sure that the patients had the same set of morals and ethics, or whether they had much experience with gambling. There are a few major complications to this experiment. Some of the subjects may not have known much about risks or gambling, and therefore would not have been able to realize the effect of each draw in the decks. The illusion did not imitate real life accurately enough to the Player, which might cause them to question the seriousness of the experiment.

Damasio’s hypothesis as well as the evidence he gives for it raises several questions. It raises questions such as: 'Is the idea that patients can be healed without medicine, but with their mind true?' Such questions as this are addressed in the movie 'Patch Adams,' in which Robin Williams plays a doctor who treats people with laughter. Another question is, 'How true is the ‘Placebo Effect’?' The placebo effect is where patients are given real medicine and told that will make them better, where other similar patients are given sugar pills or placebos, and told that will make them better. Yet another question raised might be, 'What is the importance of ‘the gut feeling,’ emotions and the mind, and what is the extent to which they are connected?' These are only a few of the questions raised by Damasio’s hypothesis. Once again, Damasio states that his hypothesis was, 'offered in the hope that they may attract further investigation and be
subject to revision as new findings appear' (245). He expected his book would arouse these kinds of questions. These questions will only help with discovering and learning more about the human brain, emotions, and reason.

In conclusion, Damasio’s hypothesis that, feelings or emotions, and reason play an important part both on each other and on the decisions people make, is very feasible. Furthermore there is simply not enough evidence to prove his hypothesis adequately. Too little is known about human emotions, feelings, and the brain to provide the answers and proof to this supposition yet. Damasio picked up in the study of this connection where Descartes left off. Damasio’s idea that his hypothesis would encourage others to also examine this area may soon bring evidence and an answer to the following questions. Is the idea that patients can be healed without medicine, but with their mind correct? How true is the ‘Placebo Effect’? What is the importance of ‘the gut feeling,’ emotions and the mind, and the extent to which they are connected?