The purpose of this research was to explore the effects of small monetary or economic gains and/or losses on choice behavior through the use of a computerized game and to determine gain/loss ratio differences using both behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Participants (N=53) played the game in several 36 minute sessions. These sessions operated with concurrent variable-interval schedules for both rewards and penalties. Previously, asymmetrical effects of gains and losses have been identified through cognitive studies, primarily due to the work of nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (1979). They found that the effect of a loss is twice (i.e., 2:1) that of a gain. Similar results have been observed in the behavioral laboratory as exemplified by the research of Rasmussen and Newland (2008), who found a 3:1 ratio for the effect of losses versus gains. The asymmetry of gains and losses was estimated behaviorally and through event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and the cognitive (Kahneman and Tversky) and behavioral (Rasmussen and Newland) discrepancy elucidated. In the game, the player moves an animated submarine around sea rocks to collect yellow coins and other treasures on the sea floor. Upon collecting a coin, one of three things can happen: The player triggers a penalty (loss), the player triggers a payoff (gain), or there is no change. The behavioral measures consisted in counting the number of clicks, reinforces, and punishers and then determining ratio differences between punished (loss) and no punished condition (gain) conditions. The obtained gain/loss ratio corresponded to an asymmetry of 2:1. Similarly ratio differences were found between male and female, virtual money and cash, risk averse versus risk seeking, and generosity versus profit behavior. Also, no ratio difference was found when players receive information about other player's performances in the game (players with information versus players without information). In electroencephalographic (EEG) studies, visual evoked potentials (VEPs) and ERPs components (e.g., P300) were examined. I found increased ERP amplitudes for the losses in relation to the gains that corresponded to the calculated behavioral asymmetry of 2:1. A correlational strategy was adopted that sought to identify neural correlates of choice consistent with cognitive and behavioral approaches. In addition, electro cortical ratio differences were observed between different sets of electrodes that corresponded to the front, middle, and back sections of the brain; differences between sessions, risk averse and risk seeking behavior and sessions with concurrent visual and auditory stimuli and only visual were also estimated.

The purpose of this research is to determine if loss aversion is replicable as an overt behavioral response to potential gains and losses in complex, recurring, uncertain, and risky choice with real gains and losses of money and food. Cognitive methods used to determine the effect of loss have primarily measured verbal response to hypothetical choice scenarios in which participants cognitively predict their behavior in a series of bets or situations involving imagined monetary gains and losses. Less has been done using behavioral methods that measure overt behavioral response to gains and losses of actual commodities. The present study uses the experimental analysis of behavior to measure the asymmetrical effect of loss in multiple choice domains. A series of four experiments investigated four factors likely to affect the expression and degree of loss aversion: (a) learning and experience with consequences of choice; (b) real gains and losses instead of hypothetical quantities or imagined commodities; (c) gains and losses of a non-quantitative, primary reinforcer (food); and (d) the menstrual cycle. Participants played one of two computer games in which they earned or lost coins or food tokens exchanged for real food. Participants (N = 27, 15 women) played several 18-minute sessions in gains-only conditions and 16 sessions in 36-minute gains+punishment conditions. Recurring, complex, uncertain, and risky choice was simulated in the games by using 6-ply interdependent concurrent variable interval schedules of reinforcement (gains) and punishment (losses). Choice behavior with real gains and losses of money and food was modeled using the generalized matching law, allowing for the quantification of the effects of potential loss, relative to gains, as a change in bias and sensitivity. Loss aversion was operationalized as gain-loss asymmetry ratios derived from bias estimates produced in unpunished and punished choice conditions. Gain-loss asymmetry was replicated in both women and men in complex, recurring, uncertain, and risky choice with potential gains and losses of real money and food. Average gain-loss asymmetry ratios were 3 to 6 times greater in choice with money and 4 to 16 times greater in choice with food than those reported in the cognitive and behavioral literature. Although individual differences in response to loss were striking, the asymmetrically larger behavioral effects of loss, relative to gains, were nearly ubiquitous. Marked disruption in sensitivity to reinforcement was observed in punished choice for most participants, but for 33% of participants in choice with money and 42% in choice with food, sensitivity to reinforcers increased. No evidence was found for behavioral choice varying with the menstrual cycle.