Technical Report #250

Cognitive Modeling Analysis of the Decision-Making Processes Used by Cocaine Abusers

Julie C. Stout, Jerome R. Busemeyer and Anli Lin, Indiana University; Steven R. Grant, Katherine R. Bonson, National Institutes of Drug Abuse

Abstract

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This article examines the theoretical basis of decision-making deficits exhibited by cocaine abusers using a laboratory decision-making task first described by Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, and Anderson (1994). A total of 12 male cocaine abusers and 14 controls performed the task, and the cocaine group performed significantly worse than the controls. A cognitive modeling analysis (Busemeyer & Stout, 2002) was used to estimate three parameters that measure importance of the cognitive, motivational, and response processes for determining the observed performance deficit. The results of this analysis indicated that motivational and choice consistency factors, but not learning/memory were mainly responsible for the decision-making deficit of the cocaine abusers in this task.

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