The influence of emotion regulation on decision-making under risk

Journal of neurophysiology, 2015

Emotional events resulting from a choice influence an individual's subsequent decision-making. Although the relationship between emotion and decision-making has been widely discussed, previous studies have mainly investigated decision outcomes that can easily be mapped to reward and punishment, including monetary gain/loss, gustatory stimuli, and pain. These studies regard emotion as a modulator of decision-making that can be made rationally in the absence of emotions. In our daily lives, however, we often encounter various emotional events that affect decisions by themselves, and mapping the events to a reward or punishment is often not straightforward. In this study, we investigated the neural substrates of how such emotional decision outcomes affect subsequent decision-making. By using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured brain activities of humans during a stochastic decision-making task in which various emotional pictures were presented as decision outc...

International Gambling Studies, 2018

Neuroimaging studies demonstrate alterations in fronto-striatal neurocircuitry in gambling disorder (GD) during anticipatory processing, which may influence decision-making impairments. However, to date little is known about fronto-striatal anticipatory processing and emotion-based decision-making. While undergoing neuroimaging, 28 GD and 28 healthy control (HC) participants performed the Monetary Incentive Delay Task (MIDT). Pearson correlation coefficients assessed out-of-scanner Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance with the neural activity during prospect (A1) processing on the MIDT across combined GD and HC groups. The HC and GD groups showed no significant difference in out-of-scanner IGT performance, although there was a trend for higher IGT scores in the HC group on the last two IGT trial blocks.

Neuroimage, 2010

Understanding the neurocognitive basis of risk-taking behavior is an important issue, especially in economic decision-making. Classical behavioral studies have shown that risk-attitude changes across different contexts, but little is so far known about the brain correlates of processing of outcomes across such context shifts. In this study, EEG was recorded while subjects performed a gambling task. Participants could choose between a risky and a safer option, within two different contexts: one in which options yielded gains and losses of the same magnitude (Zero Expected Value context) and another in which gains were larger than losses (Positive Expected Value context). Based on their risk-attitude, two groups were compared: subjects who are risk-seekers in the zero Expected Value context (Zero-Oriented group) and subjects who are riskseekers in the positive Expected Value condition (Positive-Oriented group). The Feedback Related Negativity (FRN) reflects this distinction, with each group being insensitive to magnitude of outcomes in the condition in which they were risk-prone. P300 amplitude mirrored the behavioral results, with larger amplitudes in the condition in which each group showed a higher risk-tendency. Source analyses highlighted the involvement of posterior cingulate cortex in risky decision-making. Taken together, the findings make a contribution to the clarification of the neurocognitive substrates of risky decision-making.

PloS one, 2012

Cognitive control is a fundamental skill reflecting the active use of task-rules to guide behavior and suppress inappropriate automatic responses. Prior work has traditionally used paradigms in which subjects are told when to engage cognitive control. Thus, surprisingly little is known about the factors that influence individuals' initial decision of whether or not to act in a reflective, rule-based manner. To examine this, we took three classic cognitive control tasks (Stroop, Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, Go/No-Go task) and created novel 'free-choice' versions in which human subjects were free to select an automatic, pre-potent action, or an action requiring rule-based cognitive control, and earned varying amounts of money based on their choices. Our findings demonstrated that subjects' decision to engage cognitive control was driven by an explicit representation of monetary rewards expected to be obtained from rule-use. Subjects rarely engaged cognitive control when the expected outcome was of equal or lesser value as compared to the value of the automatic response, but frequently engaged cognitive control when it was expected to yield a larger monetary outcome. Additionally, we exploited fMRI-adaptation to show that the lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) represents associations between rules and expected reward outcomes. Together, these findings suggest that individuals are more likely to act in a reflective, rule-based manner when they expect that it will result in a desired outcome. Thus, choosing to exert cognitive control is not simply a matter of reason and willpower, but rather, conforms to standard mechanisms of value-based decision making. Finally, in contrast to current models of LPFC function, our results suggest that the LPFC plays a direct role in representing motivational incentives.

Emotion, 2010

It is well established that emotion plays a key role in human social and economic decision making. The recent literature on emotion regulation (ER), however, highlights that humans typically make efforts to control emotion experiences. This leaves open the possibility that decision effects previously attributed to acute emotion may be a consequence of acute ER strategies such as cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression. In Study 1, we manipulated ER of laboratory-induced fear and disgust, and found that the cognitive reappraisal of these negative emotions promotes risky decisions (reduces risk aversion) in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task and is associated with increased performance in the prehunch/hunch period of the Iowa Gambling Task. In Study 2, we found that naturally occurring negative emotions also increase risk aversion in Balloon Analogue Risk Task, but the incidental use of cognitive reappraisal of emotions impedes this effect. We offer evidence that the increased effectiveness of cognitive reappraisal in reducing the experience of emotions underlies its beneficial effects on decision making.

NeuroImage, 2003

An event-related fMRI technique was used to assess neural responses to financial reward and penalty during a simple gambling task. We attempted to determine whether brain activities are dependent on the unique context of an event sequence. Thirty-six healthy volunteers participated in the study. The task was to guess the color of the suit of a card on each trial and to respond by pressing a button. Every correct response ("win") and incorrect response ("loss") was associated with financial reward and penalty, respectively. The magnitude of reward or penalty in each trial did not change; however, the subjects' self-reported emotional arousal was significantly higher for the events of "the fourth win of four wins in a row" and "the fourth loss of four losses in a row." We also found that the bilateral anterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortices were specifically activated when the subjects experienced "the fourth win of four wins in a row" and "the fourth loss of four losses in a row. "When the subjects experienced "a win following four losses in a row" or "a loss following four wins in a row, "the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex was specifically activated. Our data indicate that there exist brain activities associated with the event-sequence context in which abstract reward or penalty is received. These context-dependent activities appear to be crucial for adapting oneself to new circumstances and may account for clinical symptoms of various mental illnesses in which dysfunction of these regions has been reported.

2015

37 Emotional events resulting from a choice influence an individual’s subsequent 38 decision-making. Although the relationship between emotion and decision-making has 39 been widely discussed, previous studies have mainly investigated decision outcomes 40 that can easily be mapped to reward and punishment, including monetary gain/loss, 41 gustatory stimuli, and pain. These studies regard emotion as a modulator of 42 decision-making that can be made rationally in the absence of emotions. In our daily 43 lives, however, we often encounter various emotional events that affect decisions by 44 themselves, and mapping the events to a reward or punishment is often not 45 straightforward. In this study, we investigated the neural substrates of how such 46 emotional decision outcomes affect subsequent decision-making. By using functional 47 magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we measured brain activities of humans during a 48 stochastic decision-making task in which various emotional pictures...

NeuroImage, 2008

Incidental negative emotions unrelated to the current task, such as background anxiety, can strongly influence decisions. This is most evident in psychiatric disorders associated with generalized emotional disturbances. However, the neural mechanisms by which incidental emotions may affect choices remain poorly understood. Here we study the effects of incidental anxiety on human risky decision making, focusing on both behavioral preferences and their underlying neural processes. Although observable choices remained stable across affective contexts with high and low incidental anxiety, we found a clear change in neural valuation signals: during high incidental anxiety, activity in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and ventral striatum showed a marked reduction in (1) neural coding of the expected subjective value (ESV) of risky options, (2) prediction of observed choices, (3) functional coupling with other areas of the valuation system, and (4) baseline activity. At the same time, activity in the anterior insula showed an increase in coding the negative ESV of risky lotteries, and this neural activity predicted whether the risky lotteries would be rejected. This pattern of results suggests that incidental anxiety can shift the focus of neural valuation from possible positive consequences to anticipated negative consequences of choice options. Moreover, our findings show that these changes in neural value coding can occur in the absence of changes in overt behavior. This suggest a possible pathway by which background anxiety may lead to the development of chronic reward desensitization and a maladaptive focus on negative cognitions, as prevalent in affective and anxiety disorders.

NeuroImage, 2007

Decision making involves the allocation of cognitive resources in response to expectations and feedback. Here we explored how frontal networks respond in a gambling paradigm in which uncertainty was manipulated to increase demands for cognitive control. In one experiment, pupil diameter covaried with uncertainty during decision making and with the degree to which subsequent outcomes violated reward expectations. In a second experiment, fMRI showed that both uncertainty and unexpected outcomes modulated activation in a network of frontal regions. Thus, the frontal network supports multiple phases of the decision-making process including information regarding reward uncertainty and reward outcome. In contrast, striatal activation only tracked reward delivery, suggesting a distinct reward pathway that might, under certain circumstances, oppose the frontal network. These results are consistent with the interpretation that reward signals may bias recruitment of frontal networks that are linked to allocation of cognitive resources.