Participants
The study was approved by the local ethics committee. 20 right-handed
volunteers participated in this study (10 females and 10 males; mean
age: 24 years, SD = 3.1 years, range 19 – 32 years). They were paid 6
Euro per hour for participation and could earn an extra bonus depending
on their success of gambling. Every participant gave written informed
consent for participation after receiving verbal and written information
about the purpose and course of the experiment and after examination by
a physician whether any risk would not allow the MRI application.
Following the MRI recording, participants completed several
questionnaires (see below). For every participant, a log-file recorded
during the time points when a trial started and the latency of choosing
an option. Based on this information, the first-level analyses of
imaging data were conducted, as described below. In addition, log-files
of all three risk levels included information on the decisions of
participants and their choice of riskier or less riskier options.