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Sensitivity to Fairness and Intentions of Others in the Ultimatum Game in Patients with Ventromedial Prefontal Lesions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 November 2012

Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory ,
Ramzi Suleiman ,
Judith Aharon-Peretz ,
Ravit Gohary  and
Gilad Hirschberger
Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Ramzi Suleiman
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Judith Aharon-Peretz
Affiliation:
Cognitive Neurology Unit, Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel
Ravit Gohary
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Gilad Hirschberger
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya, Israel
*
Correspondence and reprint requests to: Simone G. Shamay-Tsoory, Department of Psychology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905 Israel. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This study aimed to examine the relationship between perspective-taking and impaired decision-making in patients with ventromedial prefrontal (VM) lesions, using the Ultimatum Game (UG). In the UG, two players split a sum of money and one player proposes a division while the other can accept or reject this. Eight patients with VM damage and 18 healthy controls participated as responders in a modified version of the UG, in which identical offers can generate different rejection rates depending on the other offers available to the proposer. Participants had to either accept or reject offers of 2:8 NIS (2NIS for them and 8 NIS for the proposer), which were paired with one of four different possible offers (5:5, 4:6, 2:8, 8:2). Results indicate that the controls more often rejected offers of 2:8 when the alternative was 4:6 (a greedy alternative) than when the alternative was 5:5 (fair alternative), whereas the VM patients showed the opposite pattern of decision-making. Additionally, the overall rejection rates were higher in patients as compared to controls. Furthermore, scores on a perspective-taking scale were negatively correlated with rejection rates in the patient group, suggesting that perspective-taking deficits may account for impaired decision-making in VM patients. (JINS, 2012, 18, 952–961)

Keywords

Ventromedial prefrontal cortexUltimatum gameDecision-makingPerspective-takingTheory of mindfairness
Type
Symposia
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 18 , Issue 6 , November 2012 , pp. 952 - 961
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 2012

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