A neuropsychological approach to understanding risk-taking for potential gains and losses
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Date
2012-02-07
Authors
Levin, Irwin
Xue, Gui
Weller, Joshua
Reimann, Martin
Lauriola, Marco
Bechara, Antoine
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Frontiers Media
Abstract
Affective neuroscience has helped guide research and theory development in judgment and
decision-making by revealing the role of emotional processes in choice behavior, especially
when risk is involved. Evidence is emerging that qualitatively and quantitatively different
processes may be involved in risky decision-making for gains and losses. We start by
reviewing behavioral work by Kahneman and Tversky (1979) and others, which shows that
risk-taking differs for potential gains and potential losses. We then turn to the literature
in decision neuroscience to support the gain versus loss distinction. Relying in part on
data from a new task that separates risky decision-making for gains and losses, we test a
neural model that assigns unique mechanisms for risky decision-making involving potential
losses. Included are studies using patients with lesions to brain areas specified as important
in the model and studies with healthy individuals whose brains are scanned to reveal
activation in these and other areas during risky decision-making. In some cases, there is
evidence that gains and losses are processed in different regions of the brain, while in other
cases the same region appears to process risk in a different manner for gains and losses.
At a more general level, we provide strong support for the notion that decisions involving
risk-taking for gains and decisions involving risk-taking for losses represent different
psychological processes. At a deeper level, we present mounting evidence that different
neural structures play different roles in guiding risky choices in these different domains.
Some structures are differentially activated by risky gains and risky losses while others
respond uniquely in one domain or the other.Taken together, these studies support a clear
functional dissociation between risk-taking for gains and risk-taking for losses, and further
dissociation at the neural level.
Description
11 pages
Keywords
Decision neuroscience, Risky decision making, Gain/loss domain differences, Emotion
Citation
Levin, I. P., Xue, G., Weller, J. A., Reimann, M., Lauriola, M., & Bechara, A. (2012). A neuropsychological approach to understanding risk-taking for potential gains and losses. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 6(15)