Attentional deployment impacts neural response to regret

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Decision Science

Background:

• Regret arises from comparing suboptimal decisions with potential better outcomes.
• Emotional regulation strategies, like attentional deployment, can modulate subjective experiences such as regret.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of focusing on gains versus losses on regret levels.
• To examine the neural correlates of regret modulation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
• To assess the effect of attentional deployment on risk-taking behavior in a sequential decision task.

Main Methods:

• fMRI was employed during a sequential risk-taking task where participants decided when to stop opening boxes.
• Participants were induced to focus on either collected gains (GF) or missed chances (MF) after decisions.
• Behavioral data on regret ratings and risk-taking tendencies were collected, alongside neural activity.

Main Results:

• Behaviorally, participants reported significantly less regret in the gain-focus (GF) condition compared to the miss-focus (MF) condition.
• Participants exhibited reduced risk-taking after the GF context relative to the MF context.
• Neural analysis revealed increased bilateral striatum activation in both optimal outcomes and GF contexts. The right middle frontal gyrus (MFG) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL) showed heightened activation in GF versus MF, while the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) were activated only in optimal outcomes.

Conclusions:

• Attentional deployment, specifically focusing on gains, effectively reduces subjective regret and subsequent risk-taking.
• Neural mechanisms involving the striatum, MFG, and IPL underlie the modulation of regret through gain-focused attention.
• These findings highlight the role of cognitive control and emotional regulation in decision-making processes.