Counterfactually mediated emotions: a developmental study of regret and relief in a probabilistic gambling task

Regret and relief are related to counterfactual thinking and rely on comparison processes between what has been and what might have been. In this article, we study the development of regret and relief from late childhood to adulthood (11.2-20.2 years), and we examine how these two emotions affect individuals' willingness to retrospectively reconsider their choice in a computerized monetary gambling task. We asked participants to choose between two "wheels of fortune" that differed in the amount of gain and loss expected and the probability of winning. We manipulated the outcome of the wheel of fortune that was not selected by participants to induce regret or relief. For each trial, participants rated how they felt about the outcome and their willingness to modify their choice. Participants' ratings suggest that regret and relief are stronger in adults than in children and adolescents. Regret affects participants' willingness to modify their initial choice, but this desire is stronger for adults than for children. In children, the experience of regret seems to be dissociated from the willingness to reconsider a choice. This study provides the first evidence that the ability to experience counterfactually mediated emotions, such as regret and relief, and the ability to take them into consideration continue to develop during late childhood and adolescence.     

Is human decision making under ambiguity guided by loss frequency regardless of the costs? A developmental study using the Soochow Gambling Task

Converging developmental decision-making studies have demonstrated that until late adolescence, individuals prefer options for which the risk of a loss is low regardless of the final outcome. Recent works have shown a similar inability to consider both loss frequency and final outcome among adults. The current study aimed to identify developmental changes in feedback-monitoring ability to consider both loss frequency and final outcome in decision making under ambiguity. Children, adolescents, and adults performed an adapted version of the Soochow Gambling Task. Our results showed that children and adolescents presented an exclusive preference for options associated with infrequent punishment. In contrast, only adults seemed to consider both loss frequency and the final outcome by favoring the advantageous options when the frequency of losses was low. These findings suggest that the ability to integrate both loss frequency and final outcome develops with age. Moreover, the analysis of strategic adjustments following gains and losses reveals that adults switch less often after losses compared with children and adolescents. This finding suggests that psychological tolerance to loss may facilitate learning the characteristics of each option and improve the ability to choose advantageously.     

Emotions as mind organs

In matters of the mind, the opposition between what is mind-made or inside and natural or outside the mind is bound to misfire. Lindquist et al. build their analysis on a strong contrast between naturalism, which they reject, and psychologism, which they endorse. We challenge this opposition and indicate how adopting psychologism to combat a naturalistic view of emotional mind/brain areas is self-defeating. We briefly develop the alternative view of emotions as mental organs.     

Ventromedial prefrontal-subcortical systems and the generation of affective meaning

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) comprises a set of interconnected regions that integrate information from affective sensory and social cues, long-term memory, and representations of the 'self'. Alhough the vmPFC is implicated in a variety of seemingly disparate processes, these processes are organized around a common theme. The vmPFC is not necessary for affective responses per se, but is critical when affective responses are shaped by conceptual information about specific outcomes. The vmPFC thus functions as a hub that links concepts with brainstem systems capable of coordinating organism-wide emotional behavior, a process we describe in terms of the generation of affective meaning, and which could explain the common role played by the vmPFC in a range of experimental paradigms.     

The Impact of Type of Examples on Originality: Explaining Fixation and Stimulation Effects

There are obstacles to creativity: one of them is called fixation effect, the fact that some knowledge about existing or obvious solutions is spontaneously activated and constrains the generation of new solutions. Converging evidence in cognitive psychology has indicated that the ability to generate original ideas can be limited by recently activated knowledge, such as examples of solutions. On the other hand, neuroimaging studies have recently demonstrated that exposure to examples could, on the contrary, have a stimulating effect on originality. To make sense of what seems to be contradictory studies, we hypothesized that two types of examples could have opposite effects on originality: (1) restrictive examples—within the fixation effect—could lead to a reduction in the originality of the solutions, whereas (2) expansive examples—outside the fixation effect—could provoke solutions of higher originality. Results from a total of 160 participants confirmed that the solutions proposed by the group exposed to restrictive examples were less original than those given by the group exposed to expansive examples.     

Non-psychological weakness of will: self-control,stereotypes, and consequences

Prior work on weakness of will has assumed that it is a thoroughly psychological phenomenon. At least, it has assumed that ordinary attributions of weakness of will are purely psychological attributions, keyed to the violation of practical commitments by the weak-willed agent. Debate has recently focused on which sort of practical commitment, intention or normative judgment, is more central to the ordinary concept of weakness of will. We report five experiments that significantly advance our understanding of weakness of will attributions by showing that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is less thoroughly psychological than the philosophical debate has assumed. We begin by showing that a sizable minority of people attribute weakness of will even in the absence of a violated commitment (Experiment 1). We then show that weakness of will attributions are sensitive to two important non-psychological factors. First, for actions stereotypically associated with weakness of will, the absence of certain commitments often triggers weakness of will attributions (Experiments 2–4). Second, the quality of an action’s outcome affects the extent to which an agent is viewed as weak-willed: actions with bad consequences are more likely to be viewed as weak-willed (Experiment 5). Our most important finding is that the ordinary concept of weakness of will is sensitive to two non-psychological factors and is thus much broader than philosophers have thus far imagined. We conclude by suggesting a two-tier model that unites our findings with traditional philosophical theorizing about weakness of will.     

(In)validating Stereotypes About Older Workers Influences Their Intentions to Retire Early and to Learn and Develop

Although many governments of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are currently trying to retain older workers in the workforce, numerous stereotypes question their motivation and ability to work, learn, and develop. In two studies, we examined the influence of age-related stereotypic information on Belgian older workers' aspirations in the work domain. In Study 1, early retirement intentions were lower following exposure to positive stereotypic information than following exposure to negative or no stereotypic information. In Study 2, older workers confronted with positive stereotypic information were less willing to retire early and more motivated to learn and develop than those confronted with negative stereotypic information. Results suggest that communicating positive information about older workers' ability may boost their work aspirations.     

Differences in the acuity of the Approximate Number System in adults: The effect of mathematical ability

It is largely admitted that processing numerosity relies on an innate Approximate Number System (ANS), and recent research consistently observed a relationship between ANS acuity and mathematical ability in childhood. However, studies assessing this relationship in adults led to contradictory results. In this study, adults with different levels of mathematical expertise performed two tasks on the same pairs of dot collections, based either on numerosity comparison or on cumulative area comparison. Number of dots and cumulative area were congruent in half of the stimuli, and incongruent in the other half. The results showed that adults with higher mathematical ability obtained lower Weber fractions in the numerical condition than participants with lower mathematical ability. Further, adults with lower mathematical ability were more affected by the interference of the continuous dimension in the numerical comparison task, whereas conversely higher-expertise adults showed stronger interference of the numerical dimension in the continuous comparison task. Finally, ANS acuity correlated with arithmetic performance. Taken together, the data suggest that individual differences in ANS acuity subsist in adulthood, and that they are related to mathematical ability.     

An Inconsistency-Adaptive Deontic Logic for Normative Conflicts

We present the inconsistency-adaptive deontic logic DP ^r , a nonmonotonic logic for dealing with conflicts between normative statements. On the one hand, this logic does not lead to explosion in view of normative conflicts such as O A?∧?O ～A, O A?∧?P ～A or even O A?∧?～O A. On the other hand, DP ^r still verifies all intuitively reliable inferences valid in Standard Deontic Logic (SDL). DP ^r interprets a given premise set ‘as normally as possible’ with respect to SDL. Whereas some SDL-rules are verified unconditionally by DP ^r , others are verified conditionally. The latter are applicable unless they rely on formulas that turn out to behave inconsistently in view of the premises. This dynamic process is mirrored by the proof theory of DP ^r .     

How to explain receptivity to conjunction-fallacy inhibition training: Evidence from the Iowa Gambling Task

Intuitive predictions and judgments under conditions of uncertainty are often mediated by judgment heuristics that sometimes lead to biases. Using the classical conjunction bias example, the present study examines the relationship between receptivity to metacognitive executive training and emotion-based learning ability indexed by Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) performance. After completing a computerised version of the IGT, participants were trained to avoid conjunction bias on a frequency judgment task derived from the works of Tversky and Kahneman. Pre- and post-test performances were assessed via another probability judgment task. Results clearly showed that participants who produced a biased answer despite the experimental training (individual patterns of the biased → biased type) mainly had less emotion-based learning ability in IGT. Better emotion-based learning ability was observed in participants whose response pattern was biased → logical. These findings argue in favour of the capacity of the human mind/brain to overcome reasoning bias when trained under executive programming conditions and as a function of emotional warning sensitivity.