意思決定と汗

Decision Making and Electrodermal Activity

ヒトは意思決定を行う際，発汗反応をはじめとする情動反応を用いることによって情報処理を円滑化している。これまでの研究から，扁桃体や前頭葉腹内側部などの役割や，意思決定をする前や後の発汗反応が有利な選択にとって重要であることが示されてきた。これまでは意思決定における情動や意識下の処理に注目が集まり，さまざまなことがわかってきた。一方で，そうした処理と意識的な情報処理との関連が今後の検討課題と考えられる。

Abstract

Decision making is aided by emotions. Bodily responses, such as sweating, heartbeat, and visceral sensation, are used to monitor the emotional state during decision making. Because decision making in dairy life is complicated and cognitively demanding, these bodily signals are thought to facilitate the decision making process by assigning positive or negative values for each of the behavioral options. The sweat response in a decision making task is measured by skin conductance response (SCR). SCR in decision making is divided into two categories: anticipatory SCR is observed before making decisions, and reward/punishment SCR is observed after the outcome of the decision is perceived. Brain lesion studies in human revealed that the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex are important in decision making. Patients with lesinon in the amygdala exhibit neither the anticipatory nor reward/punishment SCRs, while patients with the ventromedial prefrontal lesions have deficits only in the anticipatory SCRs. Decision making tasks and SCR analysis have contributed to reveal the implicit aspects of decision making. Further research is necessary for clarifying the role of explicit process of decision making and its relationship with the implicit process.