Sensation-seeking and impulsivity in young and older adults' decision making

The somatic marker hypothesis asserts that decision-making processes
involve emotion. Using a gambling task that models real-life
decisions, studies showed that old adults perform less efficiently than
younger adults, by adopting a strategy that is disadvantageous on the
long term. This study aimed at re-examining the age effect on decisionmaking
with the same paradigm, and to explore whether differences are
related to sensation-seeking and impulsivity traits of personality. Young
and older adults were compared on the gambling task (Bechara,
Damasio, & Damasio, 2000a), and on questionnaires of sensationseeking
and impulsivity. Results confirmed an age effect on the gambling
task performance. Moreover, performance in both young and older
adults on this task was correlated to scores on the sensation-seeking
scale, but not to the rating of impulsivity