Regret, an emotion usually caused by an action we wish we could take back or wish we should have done something differently, is a common emotion among humans. So do animals experience regret like us humans do? Adam P. Steiner and David Redish, along side Brian Sweis a M.D/PhD student at the University of Minnesota, conducted a study using rats to explore their sense of regret. According to their article the part of our brain that is responsible for feeling regret is in the orbitofrontal crotex (OFC) and the ventral striatum. The Redish lab found significant evidence that rats also experience a feeling relatively close to regret in humans. By following the rat's neural signals in the OFC and ventral striatum during an experiment of restaurant row. During this experiment, a rat was placed in a maze that had different zones designated for different food options. In each zone the rat would have to wait a specific amount of time before he receives a food pellet. So the rat had a choice to wait for the food pellet or move on in search for a shorter wait period. However, moving on could come with a consequence of waiting even longer and receiving a less preferred food pellet. When this occurred the rat did a "look back" turn to it previous choice that could be interpreted as regret. The Redish lab found that the OFC received neural signaling from the previous choice the rat was thinking about but decided to move on signifying that they missed out on that choice. Regret can be tough to live with however it helps one learn from their mistakes. Just like humans, the rats who regretted moving to a different zone waited the full time in the next zone they were in and ate their food at a faster rate. This can be interpreted to mean that the rat did not want to make the same mistake so he decided to wait no matter how long because what if the next zone is worse.
Just like rats, humans cannot always see the outcomes of their actions. In Nick Sevdalis and Nigel Harvey's, from the University College London, study of regret in humans they found that humans mispredict their own emotions after decision making. In one of their experiments, people were tested on how they themselves would predict their emotions after negotiating for money. Many of the participants tended to overestimate their emotions. Post-negotiation those that failed over-predicted their emotion of regret and disappointment. Overall this study reflects how humans have complex emotions that not even oneself can determine accurately.
The study done by the Redish lab and the one done by Sevdalis and Harvey are similar in that they demonstrate how dynamic regret is in rats and in humans. The rats wished they should have waited for their food in one zone after moving to second one. And Sevadalis and Harvey found that people do not anticipate how much they will really regret something until they are at that stage. Every decision one makes can have a surprising outcome, from rats not expecting to wait longer for food to humans not realizing the extent to which they can regret something.Studying regret, not only in humans but also in other organisms, can open doors to explanations of human and animal behavior. Why do we make decisions if we will regret them later?
Citations
Bissonette, Gregory B., Daniel W. Bryden, and Matthew R. Roesch. "You Won't Regret Reading This." Nature Neuroscience 17.7 (2014): 892-93. Web.
Redish, David, Steiner, A. “Behavioral and neurophysiological correlates of regret in rat decision-making on a neuroeconomic task.” Nature Neuroscience
Association for Psychological Science. "Regrettably, Humans Mispredict Their Emotions After Decision Making." 1 August 2007.
<http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/regrettably-humans-mispredict-their-emotions-after-decision-making.html>
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