{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,22]],"date-time":"2026-10-22T21:27:35Z","timestamp":1792704455810,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)","issue":"5674","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Science"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2004,5,21]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Facing the consequence of a decision we made can trigger emotions like satisfaction, relief, or regret, which reflect our assessment of what was gained as compared to what would have been gained by making a different decision. These emotions are mediated by a cognitive process known as counterfactual thinking. By manipulating a simple gambling task, we characterized a subject's choices in terms of their anticipated and actual emotional impact. Normal subjects reported emotional responses consistent with counterfactual thinking; they chose to minimize future regret and learned from their emotional experience. Patients with orbitofrontal cortical lesions, however, did not report regret or anticipate negative consequences of their choices. The orbitofrontal cortex has a fundamental role in mediating the experience of regret.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1094550","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2004,5,20]],"date-time":"2004-05-20T15:48:13Z","timestamp":1085068093000},"page":"1167-1170","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":535,"title":["The Involvement of the Orbitofrontal Cortex in the Experience of Regret"],"prefix":"10.1126","volume":"304","author":[{"given":"Nathalie","family":"Camille","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67, Boulevard Pinel 69675 Bron, France."},{"name":"Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy."},{"name":"Service de Me\u0301decine Physique et Re\u0301adaptation, Ho\u0302pital de la Salpetriere, 47 Boulevard de l'Ho\u0302pital, 75013 Paris, France."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Giorgio","family":"Coricelli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67, Boulevard Pinel 69675 Bron, France."},{"name":"Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy."},{"name":"Service de Me\u0301decine Physique et Re\u0301adaptation, Ho\u0302pital de la Salpetriere, 47 Boulevard de l'Ho\u0302pital, 75013 Paris, France."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jerome","family":"Sallet","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67, Boulevard Pinel 69675 Bron, France."},{"name":"Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy."},{"name":"Service de Me\u0301decine Physique et Re\u0301adaptation, Ho\u0302pital de la Salpetriere, 47 Boulevard de l'Ho\u0302pital, 75013 Paris, France."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Pascale","family":"Pradat-Diehl","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67, Boulevard Pinel 69675 Bron, France."},{"name":"Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy."},{"name":"Service de Me\u0301decine Physique et Re\u0301adaptation, Ho\u0302pital de la Salpetriere, 47 Boulevard de l'Ho\u0302pital, 75013 Paris, France."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jean-Rene\u0301","family":"Duhamel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67, Boulevard Pinel 69675 Bron, France."},{"name":"Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy."},{"name":"Service de Me\u0301decine Physique et Re\u0301adaptation, Ho\u0302pital de la Salpetriere, 47 Boulevard de l'Ho\u0302pital, 75013 Paris, France."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Angela","family":"Sirigu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institut des Sciences Cognitives, CNRS, 67, Boulevard Pinel 69675 Bron, France."},{"name":"Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza San Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy."},{"name":"Service de Me\u0301decine Physique et Re\u0301adaptation, Ho\u0302pital de la Salpetriere, 47 Boulevard de l'Ho\u0302pital, 75013 Paris, France."}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"221","reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0033-295X.93.2.136"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_3_2","unstructured":"Consider the following example: \u201cEight years ago a man from Liverpool in UK committed suicide. He decided to end his life after he knew that he missed out on a \u00a32 million prize in the National Lottery. While watching television he saw the numbers of his winning combination 14 17 22 24 42 and 47 appearing one by one on the screen. He always played these numbers but on this occasion he had not renewed his ticket on time which actually expired the previous Saturday\u201d ( 23 ). Although extreme this example illustrates the profound regret this man felt once he knew the opportunity he missed to become very rich."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_4_2","unstructured":"N. J. Roese J. M. Olson What Might Have Been: The Social Psychology of Counterfactual Thinking (Erlbaum Mahwah NJ 1995)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_5_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S1364-6613(02)01974-5"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_6_2","first-page":"332","volume":"3","year":"1999","unstructured":"B. Mellers, I. Ritov, A. Schwartz, J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.3, 332 (1999).","journal-title":"J. Exp. Psychol. Gen."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_7_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1006\/obhd.1996.0013"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_8_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1287\/opre.30.5.961"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_9_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/2232669"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_10_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/cercor\/10.3.284"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_11_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S0896-6273(01)00303-8"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_12_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1523\/JNEUROSCI.23-01-00303.2003"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_13_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/19525"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_14_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1076358"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_15_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/0010-0277(94)90018-3"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_16_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/brain\/120.10.1805"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_17_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1093\/cercor\/10.3.295"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_18_2","unstructured":"Materials and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_19_2","unstructured":"Avoiding a loss of 200 changes the negative impact of losing 50 into a neutral affective response. Data for +50 obtained \/ \u2013200 unobtained versus +50 obtained \/ \u201350 unobtained show that the emotional evaluation (elation) is higher in the first case compared with the second one. Thus the magnitude of the avoided monetary loss does influence emotional response indicating that relief is present (table S3)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_20_2","unstructured":"J. Von Neumann O. Morgenstern Theory of Games and Economic Behavior (Princeton University Press Princeton NJ 1944)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_21_2","unstructured":"One could argue that the regret effect is not independent from the disappointment induced by the unobtained outcome of the chosen gamble. However when reanalyzed as a function of the latter variable (fig. S4) the affective ratings in the complete feedback condition are much less contrasted then when analyzed as a function of the unchosen gamble's outcome."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_22_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/0022-3514.57.2.212"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_23_2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/026999300402781"},{"key":"e_1_3_2_24_2","unstructured":"M. Zeelenberg E. van Dijk in D. Mandel D. Hilton P. Catelani Eds. The Psychology of Counterfactual Thinking (Routledge London 2004)."},{"key":"e_1_3_2_25_2","unstructured":"We thank M. Thevenet L. Granjon and B. Messaoudi for technical support. This work was supported by Action Concert\u00e9e Incitative (Syst\u00e8mes complexes en sciences humaines et sociales) from CNRS."}],"container-title":["Science"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1126\/science.1094550","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2024,1,9]],"date-time":"2024-01-09T21:06:21Z","timestamp":1704834381000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/science.1094550"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2004,5,21]]},"references-count":24,"journal-issue":{"issue":"5674","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2004,5,21]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1126\/science.1094550"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1126\/science.1094550","relation":{"has-review":[{"id-type":"doi","id":"10.3410\/f.1021933.358558","asserted-by":"object"}]},"ISSN":["0036-8075","1095-9203"],"issn-type":[{"value":"0036-8075","type":"print"},{"value":"1095-9203","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2004,5,21]]}}}