Casey

• Outline the background of Casey's research (4)

  1)Explain the Marshmellow test and define the delay of gratification2)Explain how Casey wished to research this further in adults, by creating a more complex taskWalter Mischel first researched delayed gratification in children, which is the ability to resist an immediate reward in order to gain an even greater reward later. He used the Marshmallow Test, in which children from Stanford University Nursery were presented with a Marshmallow and asked to resist the temptation to eat it in order to have two marshmallows later. Mischel observed 'cooling' behaviours in the high delayers, who were able to exercise self-control and resist temptation.Casey wished to research this further in adults, by creating a more complex task to see if delayed gratification in childhood could lead to high levels of impulse control in adulthood. She also wanted to see which regions of the brain were more active in high and low delayers.
• What is the Pre-frontal gyrus?

  Involved in resolving conflict (go/no-go task) –coldregions
• What is the Ventral Striatum?

  The emotional regions associated with immediate rewards –hotregions
• What is the difference between a high delay and a low delayer?

  People that are low delayers cannot resist compared to high delayers that can resist temptation.
• What was the aim of Casey's experiment? (3)

  -The aim of the study was to build on previous researchto assess whether delay of gratification in childhood predicts impulse control activities when participants were older (adults).(Minimum expectation for 2 marks)-The study was looking at impulse control onboth a behavioural level (if they press the button or not) and on and neural level (which regions of the brain active).-The researchers also wanted to investigatesensitivity to alluring or social cues (happy faces).
• What was the research method used in Casey's study?

  Quasi experiment
• What was the sample used in experiment 1 in Casey's study? (2)

  - 59 participants that were selected from a pool of people initially tested in the marshmallow test. They were retested in their 20s and again in the 30s and again for the study when they were in their 40s.

  -Mixture of high and low delayers female and male.
• What apparatus was used in experiment 1 of Casey's study?

  Laptop loaded with Nimstim set of faces
• What was the procedure in experiment 1 in Casey's study?

  Participants were asked to perform a go/no-go task with two versions: cool and hot.The cool versionThe participant was told to press the button for one gender “go” e.g. male and not press the button for the opposite gender “no-go” for example female. The facial expressions of the people in the images wereneutral.The hot’ versionParticipants were shownhappy faces (go)orneutral faces (no-go)OR they were shownfearful faces (go)andneutral faces (no-go)Participants were instructed to respondas quickly as possibleandas accurately as possible. The face appeared for500 msfollowed by one second interval.A total of160trousers presentedper runin a pseudorandomised order
• What was the DV in Casey's study? (2)

  Accuracy was measured and reaction times
• What were the results in experiment 1 in Casey's study? (3)

  -There wasno significant differencesbetween high and low delayers in terms of reaction times during the trials. There was also no significant difference in terms of accuracy on all of the go trials (99. 8% correct on cool tasks, and 99.5% on hot tasks).

  -low delayersmadesignificantly morefalse alarms on the ‘no-o’ trials than high delayers especially in the hot tasks with happy faces.

  -there were significant differences on the no-go trials:the mean false alarm rate(how many times they pressed when they weren’t supposed to) for the cool task was(cool task, 9.96% and for the hot trials, 12.2%)
• What were the conclusions in experiment 1 in Casey's study? (2)

  1. Individuals who had difficulty delaying gratification at age 4 showedmoredifficulty as adults in suppressing responses to happy stimuli.

  2. The results are consistent with previous work: that thecontextaffects how easy is to delay gratification. The more tempting the calls (i.e., ‘hot’ faces), the harder it is to resist.
• What was the sample in experiment 2 in Casey's study?

  Only26out of the 59 participants from experiment 1 agreed to take part.
• What was the apparatus used in experiment 2 in Casey's study? (3)

  -FMRI scanner: Measure brain activity and function by detecting changes with bloodflow.

  -Neuroscan 5 button response pad: recorded their responses and reaction time.

  -Objective E-prime software: to display the task Onto a projection screen.
• What was the procedure in experiment 2 in Casey's study? (3)

  -while in the fMRI scanner, participantsonly completed the ‘hot’ versionof the go/no-go task.-The stimuli and instructions were identical to those used in experiment 1, however there are differences in the timing and number of trials.-there weretwo runs, one with a happy face, and one with a fearful face.
• What were the results in experiment 2 in Casey's study ? (2)

  - Low delayers had a reduced brain activity in their inferior frontal gyrus compared to high delayers on no-go trials.

  -Low delayers had increased activity in the ventral striatum on no-go trials (mainly happy faces) compared to high delayers .
• What were the conclusions drawn in experiment 2 in Casey's study? (3)

  1. The results support the view that thefrontal region of the brainis active whenresisting temptationon the go/no-go task, and the activation is reduced in low delayers .

  2.The ventral striatum showed exaggerated activity in low delayers: the more alluring the stimulus (i.e. context), the more that low delayers were unable to resist.

  3. Different regions of the brain have my activity for cool and hot systems.
• What are the overall conclusions in Casey's study?

  1. Sensitivity to environmental hot cues plays a significant role in an individual‘s ability to suppress actions towards alluring cues i.e. the more alluring a social cue such as a happy face, the more difficult it is to resist the temptation of that stimuli.

  2. Resistance to temptation (as measured by delay of gratification test) is a relatively stableindividual differencethat predicts reliable biases in terms of brain activity (specifically the ventral striatal circuitry, with theinferior frontal gyrusshowing less activation in low delayers , and theventral striatumshowing a greater activation in low delayers when resisting alluring cues.

  3. Individuals who at age 4 have difficulties delaying gratification (and have low self control as adults) have difficulty as adults in terms of suppressing responses to positive social cues (compare to those who don’t).