Deep Field / case

Iowa Gambling Task

On the Iowa Gambling Task a bilateral ventromedial prefrontal lesion patient reasons aloud about deck expected values at unimpaired propositional quality, yet across a hundred trials keeps drawing from disadvantageous decks. Controls develop anticipatory skin-conductance responses to bad decks before they can articulate why; the patient acquires explicit knowledge without the anticipatory broadcast. What is maintained in healthy subjects is the Affective Witness coupling: interoceptive prediction loop, precision-weighted valence, neuromodulatory re-tuning of attention, memory, motor planning, and autonomic output as simulated draws are priced. Burn rate is allostatic cost—the cumulative metabolic and endocrine price of maintaining homeostatic set-points under load plus anticipatory corrections and broadcast overhead. Cease or lesion the closure and pricing fails while propositions remain: explicit knowledge without anticipatory affective pricing, disadvantageous choice persisting—the Simulation-Pricing Junction split made visible at low stakes.