Gamblers don't learn from mistakes

[flashl]

PISA, Italy, March 31 (UPI) -- Italian researchers say compulsive gamblers don't learn from their mistakes because of a kind of "mental rigidity."

The study, published in Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health, discovered what the researchers call "a cognitive 'rigidity' that predisposes a person to the development of impulsive or compulsive" behavior leading to pathological gambling.

Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa evaluated which areas of the brain were activated when a group of 15 male and five female pathological gamblers and a control group of healthy individuals were asked to carry out problem-solving tests including the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, the Wechsler Memory Scale revised and the Verbal Associative Fluency Test.

...

"Our findings show that in spite of normal intellectual, linguistic and visual-spatial abilities, the pathological gamblers could not learn from their mistakes to look for alternative solutions in the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test," the researchers said in a statement.

UPI

Is there a lesson in there about the casino called Wall Street?

[islandmkl]

1. the beauty of Wall Street....

OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY!!!...

[pscot]

2. Sounds like our pResident

n/t

[Warpy]

3. They don't learn because they're endorphin addicts

who are chasing a high, not a profit.

Winning trips the pleasure centers of the brain. They want to feel more of that so they plow their winnings into more gambling. It's why compulsive gamblers will squander their proceeds, no matter how much money they win.

I would argue the researchers would find the same sort of cognitive rigidity in all addicts.

Addiction is brain chemistry, folks, not a moral failure.

[Speck Tater]

4. My own experience with gambling addiction.

The first time I went to the race track I won the daily double right off the bat and was hooked on race track gambling. After three consecutive weekends of losing almost every $2 bet I made, I DEFINITELY learned what a waste of time and money the whole adventure was. My "addiction" to the race track lasted exactly 3 weeks, and I haven't gambled a single penny on anything in the 35 years since then. So I just don't see how they can say that people don't learn by their mistakes. I certainly learned.