Neural correlates of direct access trading in a real stock market: An fMRI investigation

Background: While financial decision making has been barely explored, no study has previously investigated the neural correlates of individual decisions made by professional traders involved in real stock market negotiations, using their own financial resources. Aim: We sought to detect how different brain areas are modulated by factors like age, expertise, psychological profile (speculative risk seeking or aversion) and, eventually, size and type (Buy/Sell) of stock negotiations, made through Direct Access Trading (DAT) platforms. Subjects and methods: Twenty male traders underwent fMRI while negotiating in the Italian stock market using their own preferred trading platform. Results: At least 20 decision events were collected during each fMRI session. Risk averse traders performed a lower number of financial transactions with respect to risk seekers, with a lower average economic value, but with a higher rate of filled proposals. Activations were observed in cortical and subcortical areas traditionally involved in decision processes, including the ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC, dlPFC), the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and dorsal striatum. Regression analysis indicated an important role of age in modulating activation of left NAcc, while traders' expertise was negatively related to activation of vlPFC. High value transactions were associated with a stronger activation of the right PPC when subjects' buy rather than sell. The success of the trading activity, based on a large number of filled transactions, was related with higher activation of vlPFC and dlPFC. Independent of chronological and professional age, traders differed in their attitude to DAT, with distinct brain activity profiles being detectable during fMRI sessions. Those subjects who described themselves as very self-confident, showed a lower or absent activation of both the caudate nucleus and the dlPFC, while more reflexive traders showed greater activation of areas involved in strategic decision making. Discussion: The neural correlates in DAT are similar to those observed in other decision making contexts. Trading is handled as a well-learned automatic behavior by expert traders; for those who mostly rely on heuristics, cognitive effort decreases, and transaction speed increases, but decision efficiency lowers following a poor involvement of the dlPFC

A Dynamic Multilevel Examination of Cross-Cultural Differences in Visual Perceptual Learning

The present thesis uses a multilevel cultural framework to explore cross-cultural differences in visual perceptual learning (VPL). Specifically, the thesis aims to investigate VPL trajectories when people are compelled to engage in global processing. Due to a common global advantage during perception across populations (also known as the global precedence effect), any differences observed between people from different cultural backgrounds during training would reflect the prevailing influence of culture on VPL processes (Chapter 1). A shape discrimination task and a sequence learning task were employed to examine this hypothesis. At the outset, an integrated multilevel cultural framework was examined to define the macro (group) and micro (individual) levels of culture that may operate on VPL processes (Chapter 2). Culture was thus characterised by the individualism-collectivism construct at the macro level, while the independent-interdependent self-construal construct described variations at the micro level. Chapter 3 subsequently employed this framework to examine cultural differences in VPL using a shape discrimination task that implicates the differentiation mechanism of VPL. Following this, Chapter 4 employed a priming manipulation to investigate the dynamic influence of culture at the micro individual level of analysis. Chapter 5 then extends the investigation into another domain of VPL using a sequence learning task that implicates the unitisation mechanism of learning. Chapter 6 synthesised the results of the previous chapters and documented the systematic design process of an electroencephalogram (EEG) study using the shape discrimination task. Collectively, the outcomes suggest that cultural characteristics, when defined using a dynamic multilevel framework, can operate differentially on VPL processes as it is context- and task-dependent. The findings serve as an intriguing foundation for research in the interdisciplinary domain of culture and cognition. Future studies could employ neuroscientific methods and alternative micro and macro level features that better represent cultural characteristics within varying psychological domains. Research on diversity in learning offers novel insights into the dynamic multilevel nature of culture, which can be translated into real-world training paradigms