news flash: emotions sometime trump rational thought! Shocking, I know. Though I was intrigued at how the fMRI paradigm in this case provides a neat empirical example for why prisoner’s dilemma models don’t translate well into real-world practice:
A classic economic example is the “ultimatum game,” in which one participant gets 10 $1 bills (or loonies, in Canada). He chooses how many to offer to a second participant. If she accepts the offer, the money is split the way the first participant suggested; if she rejects the offer, nobody gets anything.
Logically, the first participant can maximize his money by offering a single dollar, because logically the second participant should accept that as being better than nothing. In real life, however, the second participant, if offered only a dollar or two, almost always rejects the offer.
Functional MRI scans of brain activity show that a low offer stimulates an area associated with negative emotions, including anger and disgust. It seems the second participant would rather punish the first participant for making such an insulting offer than make an easy buck. And usually, the person making the offer understands this and offers something close to an even split, averaging about $4.
I don’t really see why the above reasonable decision-making process is inherently non-rational or “emotional” though. Doesn’t it make good rational sense to “punish” someone making a lowball offer, so they are motivated to offer you more up front?
Did anyone else see this article? I came across it on msnbc.com - “Scientists Try to Predict Intentions: using brain scans to read minds before thoughts turn into actions” (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17464320/)
I haven’t read anything Dr. Haynes has published in peer-reviewed journals on the topic (I’ll see what I can find) but this seems like another case of popular media grossly over-estimating (or mis-estimating?) the significance of the research. Take this excerpt:
But scientists are making enough progress to make ethicists nervous, since the research has already progressed from identifying the regions of the brain where certain thoughts occur to identifying the very content of those thoughts.
Although I think my favorite part is the opening paragraph, where the author writes:
At a laboratory in Germany, volunteers slide into a doughnut-shaped MRI machine and perform simple tasks, such as deciding whether to add or subtract two numbers, or choosing which of two buttons to press.
They have no inkling that scientists in the next room are trying to read their minds — using a brain scan to figure out their intention before it is turned into action.
Um…I think the first “inkling” that something is amiss is when these evil scientists ask you to step inside their big shiny machine. Perhaps I’m overly-critical. I still think articles like this are amusing, but it makes me cringe when I think that this is the public’s view of MR research. Any other opinions?
I am sure that this experiment was initially conceived by grad students:
FKF Applied Research and the UCLA Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center have released their Second Annual Ranking of the most effective Super Bowl ads using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) brain imaging. Many of the Super Bowl ads stoked regions of the brain associated with anxiety, including the amygdala.
Compared to last year’s ads there was much more anxiety, and far less positive emotion in these highly touted commercials. “This clearly was the year of the amygdala, the brain’s ‘threat detector,” said Dr. Joshua Freedman UCLA Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and a co-founder of FKF Applied Research. “Much of the anxiety seemed caused by violence, but was also rooted in economic fears. The Nationwide ad had a spike when Kevin Federline was revealed to be working in fast food, and also when the GM robot turned out to be OK but afraid for its job.”
FKF Applied Research and Dr. Marco Iacoboni’s group at the UCLA Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center recruited men and women ages 18-34 to watch this year’s Super Bowl ads. The subjects viewed the ads while in UCLA’s high-field fMRI scanner, which monitors the activity in their brains.
Continue reading ‘brain scans and superbowl ads’
Recent Comments