Posted: Jun 10, 2014 5:47 am
I think David, these paras might help
The researchers had a control experiment where the results were same but didn't include decision making (I haven't read the actual paper but this is what I gathered). The behavior was different. It means that the decision making process played a part in the rat's behavior, which is what characterizes regretful behavior.
Occasionally the rats decided not to wait for a good option and moved on, only to find themselves facing a bad option - the scientists called this a regret-inducing situation.
In these cases the rats often paused and looked back at the reward they had passed over.
They also made changes in their subsequent decisions, being more likely to wait at the next zone and rushing to eat the reward that followed. The scientists say such behaviour is consistent with the expression of regret.
When experiments were carried out where the rats encountered bad options without making incorrect decisions, such behaviour was not present.
The researchers had a control experiment where the results were same but didn't include decision making (I haven't read the actual paper but this is what I gathered). The behavior was different. It means that the decision making process played a part in the rat's behavior, which is what characterizes regretful behavior.