According to Californian researchers, receiving a reward or avoiding a punishment have the same effects... on our brains. As they report in PLoS Biology, avoiding punishment is its own reward. In other words, the same areas of our brains are stimulated when we win a game or when we avoid to lose one. And the same is true about criminals when they successfully steal something or when they avoid to be caught, or about stockbrokers when they make a good purchase or avoid severe losses. In fact, for our brain, both things are similar: it has to achieve a goal. Fascinating research! But read more...
Here are some details about the experiments which led to these conclusions.
Sixteen people participated in the study, during which they could either lose or win one dollar in an instrumental choice task. During the experimental trials, participants selected one of two fractal images presented on a screen.
After a fractal was chosen, it became brighter, and four seconds later the participant got one of four types of feedback: reward (a picture of a dollar bill and the message, You win!), negative outcome (same image, with the text, You lost!), neutral (a scrambled bill with the text, No change), or nothing (a blank screen).
During reward trials, the choice led to a high or low probability of reward (earning a dollar); during avoidance trials, the choice led to a high or low probability of avoiding a negative outcome (losing a dollar).
Below, you can see that "the same areas of the brain -- the medial orbitofrontal cortex -- are engaged when people receive a reward or avoid a negative outcome" (Credits: California Institute of Technology, Public Library of Science). A full legend for this image is available here.
In Dodging punishment may be its own reward, New Scientist gives additional explanations about the brain area activated during these kinds of activities and known as the medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC).
Damage to this area -- caused by anything from car accidents to tumours -- can cause a person to develop behavioural problems, explains John O'Doherty of Caltech in Pasadena, California, US. He recalls one patient, a karate expert, who after damage to the medial OFC began inappropriately practicing karate moves on hospital staff.
So will this research benefit to poker gamers for example? The researchers think they can help compulsive players -- but maybe not professional ones.
[O'Doherty] thinks the findings may shed light on what happens in the brains of compulsive gamblers, and help researchers develop better treatments for gambling addiction.
O’Doherty notes that the group did detect differences in other parts of the brain, showing that not every aspect of gaining a prize or avoiding a punishment were the same. For example, the anticipation of winning $1 elicited more activity in the ventral striatum, another reward centre in the brain, than not losing $1.
If you want to learn more about this fascinating research project, a highly technical paper has been published by PLoS Biology under the title "Is Avoiding an Aversive Outcome Rewarding? Neural Substrates of Avoidance Learning in the Human Brain" (Volume 4, Issue 8, August 2006). Here are two links to the full paper in HTML format and in PDF format (9 pages). The illustration above has been extracted from this paper.
Sources: Public Library of Science, via EurekAlert!, July 3, 2006; Roxanne Khamsi, New Scientist, July 4, 2006
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