An ERP Study On The Aging Of Counterfactual Thinking

Counterfactual thinking is the individual psychologically negates facts that have already occurred objectively,and then constructs a hypothetical thinking activity.Counterfactual thinking has a negative and positive predictive effect on mental health status.This study uses ERP technology and adopts a simple gambling task paradigm to explore the electrophysiological mechanisms in counterfactual thinking and aging from the perspective of outcome evaluation.Experiment 1 compare the effect of the evaluation of the results of the elderly and young people in counterfactual thinking and their electrophysiological evidence,and experiment 2 further compared the counterfactual thinking and electrophysiological evidence of the elderly with different aging and gender.The research results showed that:(1)Whether it was an upward counterfactual thinking or a downward counterfactual thinking,older people had smaller counterfactual thinking than young people,and the P300 amplitude induced by the counterfactual thinking of the elderly was smaller than the P300 amplitude induced by the counterfactual thinking of young people;(2)Whether it was an upward counterfactual thinking or a downward counterfactual thinking,there was no significant difference in the intensity of counterfactual thinking between the early and old age subjects;(3)Under the downward counterfactual thinking condition,the counterfactual thinking intensity of the female elderly was smaller than that of the male elderly,regardless of an upward counterfactual thinking or a downward counterfactual thinking,and the P300 amplitude induced by counterfactual thinking in female elderly was smaller than that in male elderly people.Moreover,compared to male seniors,the alpha and beta power induced by the female elderly were larger,but had a smaller theta power.The results of these experiments showed that: older people tend to had smaller counterfactual thinking than young people,there was no difference in the counterfactual thinking intensity between the early stage of old age and the late aging subjects,female elderly people had less counterfactual thinking,more cognitive control,smaller reward expectancy and pleasure level than male seniors.This study has important theoretical value for further exploring the cognitive development mechanism of counterfactual thinking,and it has certain guiding significance for regulating the mental health of the elderly.