blakemoore and cooper

• brain regions

  • ventral striatum-desires, emotional rewards
  • inferior frontal gyrus-decision making centre
• what is the GO/ NO-GO tasks

  • alluring stimulus change with age adults control their impulses
  • require an action such as pressing a button when given a no go instruction
  • participants must press the spacebar when the go image appears
  • must refrain from pressing the button when the no go image appears
• aim

  to see if the ability to delay gratification or not was a consistent personality trait , whether it is situational or dispositional behaviour

  which regions of the brain were active when taking part in cognitive control tasks
• what were the hypothesis

  1. low delayers on marshmallow test would make more errors on a go no go if stimuli were hot than high delayers
  2. low delayers show lower activity in inferior frontal gyrus
  3. low delayers show increased activity in ventral striatum compared to high delayers
• sample

  • 562 who are born between 1965-1970 on marshmallow test
  • 155 follow up questionare
  • 135 further follow up questionare
• how many were low delayers

  60/135
• how many were high delayers

  57/135
• how many took part in study

  59
• method

  • longitudional - 40 years
  • initiallly tested on delayed gratification
  • retested in 20s and 30s
  • present study- 2 quasi ex
  • 1st - go no go
  • 2nd -fMRI while doing go no go