Columbia Card Task

Introduction and Explanation

- You are now going to participate in a card game. In this game, you will turn over cards to win or lose points which are worth money.

- In each game round, there will be 32 cards on the computer screen, face down. You will decide how many of these cards to turn over. Each card is either a gain card or a loss card (there are no neutral cards). You will know how many gain cards and loss cards are in the deck of 32, and how many points you will gain or lose if you turn over a gain or loss card. What you don't know is which of the 32 cards that you see face-down are gain cards and which are loss cards.

- Every time you turn over a gain card you get the points added to your round total and you have the chance to turn over another card. The first time you turn over a loss card, the loss points are subtracted from your current point total and the round immediately ends. You can decide to stop turning over cards at any point, as long as you have not yet turned over a loss card. Then the accumulated total will be your number of points for this round, and you go on to the next round. Each new round starts with a score of 0 points; that means you play each round independently of the other rounds.

- You will play a total of 24 rounds, three of which will be randomly selected at the end of the session, and you will be paid out for those in real money. Each point is worth 1 cent.

- This game is for real money and requires some concentration. Please minimize distractions in your environment and close any other programs running in the background.