TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding Others' Regret: A fMRI Study
AU - Di Dio, Cinzia
AU - Cappa, Stefano Francesco
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Previous studies showed that the understanding of others’ basic emotional experiences is based on a ‘‘resonant’’ mechanism, i.e., on the reactivation, in the observer’s brain, of the cerebral areas associated with those experiences. The present study aimed to investigate whether the same neural mechanism is activated both when experiencing and attending complex, cognitively-generated, emotions. A gambling task and functional-Magnetic-Resonance-Imaging (fMRI) were used to test this hypothesis using regret, the negative cognitively-based emotion resulting from an unfavorable counterfactual comparison between the outcomes of chosen and discarded options. Do the same brain structures that mediate the experience of regret become active in the observation of situations eliciting regret in another individual? Here we show that observing the regretful outcomes of someone else’s choices activates the same regions that are activated during a first- person experience of regret, i.e. the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus. These results extend the possible role of a mirror-like mechanism beyond basic emotions.
AB - Previous studies showed that the understanding of others’ basic emotional experiences is based on a ‘‘resonant’’ mechanism, i.e., on the reactivation, in the observer’s brain, of the cerebral areas associated with those experiences. The present study aimed to investigate whether the same neural mechanism is activated both when experiencing and attending complex, cognitively-generated, emotions. A gambling task and functional-Magnetic-Resonance-Imaging (fMRI) were used to test this hypothesis using regret, the negative cognitively-based emotion resulting from an unfavorable counterfactual comparison between the outcomes of chosen and discarded options. Do the same brain structures that mediate the experience of regret become active in the observation of situations eliciting regret in another individual? Here we show that observing the regretful outcomes of someone else’s choices activates the same regions that are activated during a first- person experience of regret, i.e. the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and hippocampus. These results extend the possible role of a mirror-like mechanism beyond basic emotions.
KW - REGRET
KW - REGRET
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/10807/60966
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0007402
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0007402
M3 - Article
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 2009
SP - e7402-e7402
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
ER -