La hipótesis del Marcador Somático y su nivel de incidencia en el proceso de toma de decisiones

Executive functions are an integrated set of skills involved in the production, evaluation and control of intentional behaviors. The decision-making processes are related to executive functions. According to the Somatic Marker Theory, these processes depend critically on the neural mechanisms that regulate homeostasis, emotions and feelings. The Iowa Gambling Task is a tool used to evaluate the process of decision-making. It consists of four packages of playing cards which lead to different gains and losses. According to recent studies, the Iowa Gambling Task indicates the motivational and emotional processes of decision-making that could occur at pre-rational processing levels. This study aims to determine whether the decision-making process occurs at a higher processing level, or rational, and therefore is subject to the influence of prior knowledge of each subject, or, by contrast, occurs at a most elementary or pre-rational level. To elucidate these possibilities, two groups of students from the University of Huelva completed the Iowa Gambling Task. One group consisted of business management students, who were familiar with numbers and handling money, and another group consisted of Humanities students, who were less familiar with numbers. The results showed no differences between groups in the Prospect-Valence Learning model parameters. Therefore, the data suggest that processing takes place in pre-rational level, which fits with the principles of the Somatic Marker Theory Las funciones ejecutivas son un conjunto integrado de habilidades implicadas en la producción, supervisión y control de conductas dirigidas a objetivos. Relacionado con las funciones ejecutivas están los procesos de toma de decisiones, estos procesos según la teoría del Marcador Somático dependen de manera fundamental de los mecanismos neurales que regulan la homeostasis, las emociones y los sentimientos. Para su evaluación se viene utilizando como instrumento la Iowa Gambling Task que simula un juego de cartas con 4 mazos con los que se obtienen mayores o menores ganancias y pérdidas. Según estudios recientes, la Iowa Gambling Task refleja los procesos motivacionales y emocionales de la toma de decisiones que podrían tener lugar en niveles de procesamiento pre-racionales. En este sentido se plantea este trabajo, con el objetivo de determinar si la toma de decisiones se produce bien en un nivel de procesamiento superior, racional, y por tanto bajo la influencia de los conocimientos p