Cited by 150Neural and Behavioral Psychology StudiesDecision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsEmbodied and Extended Cognition

Why the brain talks to itself: sources of error in emotional prediction

Open access
Gilbert, Daniel T., Wilson, Timothy D.·2009·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

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.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1098/rstb.2008.0305

Cites

62 of 62 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

We couldn’t retrieve this paper’s full text, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Gilbert, D. T., & Wilson, T. D.
Affiliations
  • Harvard University (US)
  • University of Virginia (US)
Corresponding author
Gilbert, Daniel T.
Venue
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Published
2009-05-12
Volume
364
Issue
1521
Pages
1335-1341
ISSN
  • 0962-8436 (ISSN-L)
  • 1471-2970
OpenAlex
W2112835752
Cited by
150
References
62
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 15 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 11 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 10
FWCI
0.68
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) (Harvard University) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
National Science Foundation (0722132)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Embodied and Extended Cognition
Keywords
prediction error, mental simulation, affective forecasting, pleasure and pain, decision-making, cognitive biases
MeSH terms
Affect, Brain, Concept Formation, Emotions, Humans, Imagination, Mental Processes

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review