Angling Risk Task (ART)

Background

The Angling Risk Task (ART) is a computerized behavioral assessment tool used in psychology and neuroscience to measure how individuals make decisions under sequential risk. Developed by researcher Timothy J. Pleskac in 2008, it is a laboratory alternative to the popular Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART).

In the ART participants play a computerized fishing tournament across multiple rounds. In each round, the participant decides whether to cast a fishing rod repeatedly to accumulate rewards. Every catch is either a "safe" fish, which adds points and gives the option to continue or "cash out," or a "bad" fish, which ends the turn and wipes out all accumulated points for that round.

The ART is essentially an extension of the BART paradigm. In contrast to the BART paradigm, in which the probability distribution of balloon explosion points is not made explicit and participants are thus forced to make the choice to pump up the balloon further or stop under (initially) ambiguous circumstances, the ART lets researchers manipulate the ambiguity of the probability distribution by (a) introducing a weather-variable (sunny vs. cloudy) that shows all the fish in the pond on sunny days and hides them on cloudy days and (b) by manipulating the sampling from replacement ('catch-n release') to non-replacement ('catch n-keep'). So, on a sunny day with catch-n-release, participants can clearly see that the number of 'good' fish in the pond (as a red dot) and the one-and-only 'bad' fish (as a blue dot) stay the exact same from trial to trial. By looking at a participant's choices in the four different conditions (2 weather conditions X 2 sampling procedures), researchers can isolate a participant's tolerance for unknown situations versus known dangers and thus more clearly separate calculated risk-taking from impulsive behavior.

Task Procedure

The Millisecond ART provides a script for a training session and a test session. The training script runs a participant through all four of the risk conditions with 5 fishing trips each to familiarize the participant with the different scenarios. The test script can be set up to run a pre-defined scenario or lets the test administrator select the scenario at the start of the script. For example, a test administrator can select the weather (sunny vs. cloudy), sampling condition ('catch-n release' vs. 'catch-n keep') and the number of total fish in the pond (of which one-and-only is a 'bad' fish). On sunny days, the fish are represented by red ('good') and blue ('bad') dots in a turquoise pond. Anytime, the participant decides to fish a simple fishing animation is run and a cast is thrown into the pond 'catching' a fish. The fish locations get updated for each trial. If the fish is kept, it ends up in storage 'cooler' at the right side of the screen. For each successful catch, the hypothetical winning amount visibly increases. A fishing round ends if participants decide to 'cash in' or if the 'bad' fish is caught, in which case, no money is added to the bank. Test is over after 30 fishing trips.

What it Measures

The Angling Risk Task (ART) is a measure of risk-taking.

Psychological domains

• Risk-Taking Propensity: Willingness to assume risk (fish) for potential reward
• Impulsivity: Tendency to act (fish) without considering consequences
• Sensitivity to Reward and Punishment: Adjusting behavior following gains (collect) or losses ('bad' fishing)

Main Performance Metrics

• Adjusted Average Fishing Counts: Average number of fishing counts for which participants collected money, with higher values indicating greater risk-taking
• Total Money Earned: Higher earnings indicate optimal balance of risk and reward
• Failure Count: Higher numbers indicate excessive risk taking and failure to inhibit
• Post-Failure Adjustment: Compares changes in number of fishing counts following failure (catching the 'bad' fish) vs successes (could 'cash-in')

Psychiatric Conditions

Performance on the BART tends to be impaired in patients with the following conditions:

• Substance Use Disorders (SUDs)
• Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Angling Risk Task (ART).

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Pleskac, T.J (2008). Decision Making and Learning While Taking Sequential Risks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 167–185.