articleScienceMay 20, 2004Closed access

The Involvement of the Orbitofrontal Cortex in the Experience of Regret

University of Siena · Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · +3 more institutions

PubMed
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Abstract

Facing the consequence of a decision we made can trigger emotions like satisfaction, relief, or regret, which reflect our assessment of what was gained as compared to what would have been gained by making a different decision. These emotions are mediated by a cognitive process known as counterfactual thinking. By manipulating a simple gambling task, we characterized a subject's choices in terms of their anticipated and actual emotional impact. Normal subjects reported emotional responses consistent with counterfactual thinking; they chose to minimize future regret and learned from their emotional experience. Patients with orbitofrontal cortical lesions, however, did not report regret or anticipate negative…

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