Risk-Taking on Road and in Mind : Behavioral and Neural Patterns 1 of Decision Making between Risky and Safe Drivers

9 Objective: Drivers’ risk tendency is a key issue of on-road safety. The purpose of the 10 present study was to explore individual differences in drivers’ decision-making 11 processes, linking external behaviors to internal neural activity, to reveal the cognitive 12 mechanisms of on-road risky behaviors. 13 Methods: Twenty-four male drivers were split into two groups (risky versus safe 14 drivers) by their self-reported risky driving, measured by the Driving Behavior 15 Questionnaire (DBQ). To assess the drivers’ behavioral and neural patterns of 16 decision-making, two psychological paradigms were adopted: the Iowa Gambling 17 Task (IGT) and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). The performance of each 18 task and corresponding Event Related Potentials (ERPs) evoked by feedback were 19 recorded. 20 Results: In IGT, both driver groups demonstrated similar capacities to realize the 21 advantage choices (decks with larger expected rewards) through long-term 22 selection-feedback process. However, the risky drivers showed higher preference for 23 the risky choices (decks with identical expected rewards but larger variances) than the 24 safe drivers. In BART, the risky drivers demonstrated higher adjusted pumps than that 25 of the safe drivers, especially for the trials following previous negative feedback. 26 More importantly, the risky drivers showed lower amplitudes of Feedback-Related 27 Negativity (FRN) after negative feedbacks, as well as the lower amplitudes of 28 loss-minus-gain FRN, in both paradigms. The significant between-group difference of 29 P300 amplitudes was also reported, which was modified by specific paradigms and 30 according feedbacks. 31 Conclusion: The drivers’ on-road behaviors were determined by the cognitive process, 32 indicated by the behavioral and neural patterns of decision-making. The risky drivers 33 were relatively less error-revised and more reward-motivated, which were associated 34 with the according neural processing of error-detection and reward-evaluation. In this 35 light, it is feasible to quantize divers’ risk tendency in the cognitive stage before 36 actual risky driving or traffic accidents, and intervene accordingly. 37