Laboratory of Applied Brain and Cognitive Sciences, School of Business and Management, Shanghai International Studies University, 550 Dalian West Street, Shanghai, 200083, China.
Teacher Development and Educational Technology Center, Guangdong University of Finance and Economics, Guangzhou, China.
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2019 Dec;19(6):1352-1363. doi: 10.3758/s13415-019-00751-x.
High-level sensation seeking (HSS) has been linked to a range of risky and unhealthy behavior; however, the neural mechanisms underlying such linkage remain unclear. In the present study, we used event-related potential (ERP) with a Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) to investigate how sensation seeking modulates brain responses to sequential decision-making with variable reward/loss outcome magnitudes. Behavior data showed that decision-making behavior was significantly affected by the large compared with the small magnitude of monetary outcome in the BART for individuals with low-level sensation seeking (LSS), but not for individuals with HSS. Similarly, HSS individuals displayed no changes in feedback-related negativity (FRN) in response to negative outcomes from decision-making with large or small reward/loss magnitudes, whereas LSS individuals showed greater FRN in response to decision-making with large loss magnitude than those with small loss magnitude. In addition, FRN amplitude differences correlated with decision-making behavior changes from small to large outcome magnitude for LSS, while such correlation was not observed for HSS. These findings suggest that a high-level of sensation seeking is associated with behavioral and neural insensitivity to increased negative outcome during decision-making under uncertainty, which may lead to greater risky behavior in these individuals when facing potential loss.
高水平感觉寻求（HSS）与一系列风险和不健康行为有关；然而，这种联系的神经机制仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们使用与气球模拟风险任务（BART）相关的事件相关电位（ERP）来研究感觉寻求如何调节大脑对具有不同奖励/损失幅度的序列决策的反应。行为数据表明，对于低水平感觉寻求（LSS）的个体，与小金额相比，大金额的货币结果显著影响 BART 中的决策行为，但对于 HSS 个体则没有影响。同样，对于大或小奖励/损失幅度的决策产生的负面结果，HSS 个体的反馈相关负波（FRN）没有变化，而 LSS 个体的 FRN 对大损失幅度的决策反应大于小损失幅度。此外，FRN 幅度差异与 LSS 从小幅度到大幅度的决策行为变化相关，而 HSS 则没有观察到这种相关性。这些发现表明，高水平的感觉寻求与在不确定情况下进行决策时对增加的负面结果的行为和神经不敏感有关，这可能导致这些个体在面临潜在损失时表现出更大的风险行为。
