Talk:Somatic markers hypothesis
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This page has been edited (March 2006) by a graduate student who studies emotion and decision-making. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.140.203.142 (talk • contribs) 00:19, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
That would appear to be more expertise than most wikipedia articles have - why is the call for expert assistance still up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.209.153.161 (talk • contribs) 12:23, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
- The expert assistance is up, because some people in wikipedia are interested in real experts' opinions on real subjects and this definitely is a real subject. I am not an expert on the subject, but the claims of Rolls seem very unsubstantiated to me, more like: "I don't buy it and circular, causal feedback processes are something I don't like anyway." So if someone from that school of thought could come up with hard evidence and experiments, that would be appreciated. From complex systems theory I can tell you that reinforcement alone simply doesn't do the trick. PS: I inserted a link to a scientific paper, written by the guys who are cited in the article already, it should be a good fit. Hirsch.im.wald 10:03, 28 May 2006 (UTC)
- Rolls is my tutor (I'm an undergraduate Experimental Psychology student). If you want to read the other side of the argument, you could read his book: Emotion Explained (Oxford University Press, 2005). It's emphatically argued (I'm using a diplomatic choice of words here) and gives a very unfair account of alternative explanations and criticisms, but it is quite clear. His particular approach is based heavily on learning theory, which itself seems to be an evolution of behaviourist theory (i.e. one with links to neurophysiology). It all depends on what definition of 'emotion' you are working from, which in turn depends on how deeply you want to investigate decision-making. Much academic animosity seems to have grown from the confusion of one researcher's definition of emotion with another's and thus the apparent contradictions in the two working models. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.20.162 (talk • contribs) 23:17, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
- As for the comment that Rolls seems to dislike 'circular, causal feedback processes': I assure you that he does not. It is simply that he does not believe there is enough evidence for the existence or importance of such feedback in this particular case (which may or may not be a defensible standpoint; I am not defending him). I may update these comments when I have finished this essay. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.67.20.162 (talk • contribs) 23:21, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
As the one who altered the page originally, I felt it worthwhile to add the alternative viewpoint from the likes of Ed Rolls. The somatic marker hypothesis is an interesting theory, but is considered vacuous by many in the field. The problem is that a large proportion of supporting evidence is sourced from experiments using the Iowa Gambling Task and associated skin conductance findings.
Firstly, the Iowa Gambling Task has been shown to have serious issues in relation to what it is actually measuring, it involves many functions of human cognition. A recent study from Fellows & Farah has clearly shown that altering the contingency of the task allows individuals with OMPFC lesions to perform the task successfully. The original task provides a bias at the outset towards high reward decks that these individuals tend to prefer for the remainder of the task (which are ultimately bad choices). Changing this initial bias allows lesion patients to perform as well as controls. This may suggest the issue is a deficit in reversal learning rather than in using somatic-markers (i.e. the patients cannot unlearn a previously rewarded response rather than myopia for the future).
Secondly, the physiological responses found by skin conductance experiments alongside the Gambling task, suggest an anticipatory physiological response before selecting poor choices, asort of warning signal, however, there are other interpretations of this data (e.g. response to feedback, indicator of risk, post-decision emotional state).
A good review of the current status of somatic-marker studies and the hypothesis itself is provided by Dunn, Dagleish, & Lawrence (2006). The theory requires more evidence, at this moment the data is fairly tenuous and therefore I gave an alternative viewpoint.
Barney Dunn's paper is available here (don't want to link it in the main entry page as I don't know how this sits with copyright issues, remove if necessary) - http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~steve/somatic.pdf —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.133.172.72 (talk • contribs) 17:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
