Publication: Why the Brain Talks to Itself: Sources of Error in Emotional Prediction
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Date
2009
Published Version
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Volume Title
Publisher
The Royal Society
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Citation
Gilbert, D. T., and T. D. Wilson. 2009. Why the brain talks to itself: Sources of error in emotional prediction. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences 364, no. 1521: 1335-1341.
Research Data
Abstract
People typically choose pleasure over pain. But how do they know which of these their choices will entail? The brain generates mental simulations (previews) of future events, which produce affective reactions (premotions), which are then used as a basis for forecasts (predictions) about the future event's emotional consequences. Research shows that this process leads to systematic errors of prediction. We review evidence indicating that these errors can be traced to five sources.
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Keywords
prediction, affective forecasting, emotional prediction
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