认知与发展心理学研究室知识库

The vast maojority of decision-making research is performed under the assumption of the value maxing principle. This principle implies that when making decisions, individuals try to optimize outcomes on the basis of cold mathematical equations. However, decisions are emotion-laden rather thatn cool and analytic when they tap into life-threatening considerations. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), this study investigated the neural mechanisms underlying vital loss decisions. Participants were asked to make a forced choice between two losses across three conditions: both losses are trivial (trivial-trivial), both losses are viral (vital-vital), or one loss is trivial and the other is vital (vital-trivial). Out results revealed that the amygdala was more active and correlated positively with self-reported negative emotion associated with choice during vital-vital loss decisions, when compared to trivial-trivial loss decisions. The rostral anterior cingulate cortex was also more active and correlated positively with self-reported positive emotion of choice diring vital-trivial loss decisions. Out findings suggest that vital loss decisions involve emotions and cannot be adequately captured by cold computation of minimizing losses. This research will shed light on how people make vital loss decisions.

This work was partially supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2011CB711000; 2010CB833904), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 70871110; 307707890), and the National Hi-Tech Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2008AA022604). The funders had no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.