Like Humans, Rats Experience Regret, Study Suggests
By Tanya Lewis
Just as humans lament not pursuing a lover or bemoan having eaten that extra slice of chocolate cake, rats may experience feelings of regret, too, new research suggests.
When rats were given the option of visiting rooms that contained different foods, and they skipped a good deal for a worse one, they glanced back at the former room, rushed through eating the snack and were more likely to tolerate longer wait times for what they considered the more desirable food , researchers found.
Furthermore, the rats' brain activity represented the missed opportunity, suggesting the animals were, in fact, experiencing regret over their choice. [7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You]
"The rat is representing the counterfactual — the 'what might have been,'" David Redish, a neuroscientist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and senior author of the study detailed today (June 8) in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
No other studies have shown convincingly that any animal besides humans experience regret, though some studies hinted it was possible, the researchers said.
Restaurants for rats
How do you define regret? You can't exactly ask a rat if it feels regret, but even if you could, it wouldn't be proof, just as it can be difficult to tell if a human feels regret just by asking them.
It's important to distinguish between regret and disappointment, Redish told Live Science. Regret occurs when you make a mistake, but recognize there's an alternate action you could have taken that would have resulted in a better outcome, he said. Disappointment happens when "the world's just not as good as you hoped, but it's not necessarily your fault," he said.
To test whether rats could feel regret, Redish and his graduate student Adam Steiner designed a kind of "restaurant row" for the animals — a circular enclosure with pathways leading off it to "restaurants" with different kinds of food, which were dispensed after some delay.
....
http://www.livescience.com/46184-rats-e ... egret.html