Humor Improves Women's but Impairs Men's Iowa Gambling Task Performance

Enhancing cognitive control of our decisions: Making the most of humor during the IGT in females and males

We studied the impact of humor on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) decision-making performance and the cognitive control exerted during this task, considering sex as a moderator, and examined whether cognitive control mediated the influence of humor on decision-making. Sixty participants (30 females) performed an extended version of the IGT (500 trials divided into 20 blocks). We randomly assigned them to either an experimental group (Humor Group; Hg; n = 30), where humorous videos were interspersed in the decision-making trials or a control group (Non-Humor Group; NHg; n = 30), where nonhumorous videos were interspersed in the decision-making trials. We recorded participant performance and feedback-related negativity (FRN) and P3b event-related potentials (ERP) during IGT feedback as task monitoring and attention allocation indicators, respectively. We expected that whereas humor would improve IGT decision-making under risk in females during the last blocks (17-20) as well as cognitive control (specifically attention allocation and task monitoring) across the entire IGT, it would impair them in males. Contrary to our expectations, humor improved IGT decision-making under risk for both sexes (specifically at blocks 19 and 20) and attention allocation for most IGT blocks (P3b amplitudes). However, humor impaired IGT decision-making under ambiguity in males during the block six and task monitoring (FRN amplitudes) for most IGT blocks. Attention allocation did not mediate the beneficial effect of humor on decision-making under risk in either sex. Task monitoring decrements fully mediated the humor's detrimental influence on men's decision-making under ambiguity during block six.