6,419 research outputs found
Neural correlates for price involvement in purchase decisions with regards to fast-moving-consumer-goods
Some customers are loyal to their favorite brands, others easily switch between them. A new technique is available to assess differences in brand related behavior. We assume that price and brand-conscious participants show nearly the same activations in emotionally associated brain areas. Price-conscious participants also show an activation of cognitive associated regions. We employed functional magnet resonance imaging during a preference judgment task for fast mov-ing consumer goods. We discuss the results with differences in product and price specific in-volvement and advance that involvement of price-conscious participants is higher because of a higher price interest.internet Neuro market research, Involvement, Price Interest, Reward Circuitry
Aesthetic preference for art emerges from a weighted integration over hierarchically structured visual features in the brain
It is an open question whether preferences for visual art can be lawfully predicted from the basic constituent elements of a visual image. Moreover, little is known about how such preferences are actually constructed in the brain. Here we developed and tested a computational framework to gain an understanding of how the human brain constructs aesthetic value. We show that it is possible to explain human preferences for a piece of art based on an analysis of features present in the image. This was achieved by analyzing the visual properties of drawings and photographs by multiple means, ranging from image statistics extracted by computer vision tools, subjective human ratings about attributes, to a deep convolutional neural network. Crucially, it is possible to predict subjective value ratings not only within but also across individuals, speaking to the possibility that much of the variance in human visual preference is shared across individuals. Neuroimaging data revealed that preference computations occur in the brain by means of a graded hierarchical representation of lower and higher level features in the visual system. These features are in turn integrated to compute an overall subjective preference in the parietal and prefrontal cortex. Our findings suggest that rather than being idiosyncratic, human preferences for art can be explained at least in part as a product of a systematic neural integration over underlying visual features of an image. This work not only advances our understanding of the brain-wide computations underlying value construction but also brings new mechanistic insights to the study of visual aesthetics and art appreciation
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Continuous Theta Burst Stimulation of the Posterior Medial Frontal Cortex to Experimentally Reduce Ideological Threat Responses.
Decades of behavioral science research have documented functional shifts in attitudes and ideological adherence in response to various challenges, but little work to date has illuminated the neural mechanisms underlying these dynamics. This paper describes how continuous theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation may be employed to experimentally assess the causal contribution of cortical regions to threat-related ideological shifts. In the example protocol provided here, participants are exposed to a threat prime-an explicit reminder of their own inevitable death and bodily decomposition-following a downregulation of the posterior medial frontal cortex (pMFC) or a sham stimulation. Next, disguised within a series of distracter tasks, participants' relative degree of ideological adherence is assessed-in the present example, with regard to coalitional prejudice and religious belief. Participants for whom the pMFC has been downregulated exhibit less coalitionally biased responses to an immigrant critical of the participants' national in-group, and less conviction in positive afterlife beliefs (i.e., God, angels, and heaven), despite having recently been reminded of death. These results complement prior findings that continuous theta burst stimulation of the pMFC influences social conformity and sharing and illustrate the feasibility of investigating the neural basis of high-level social cognitive shifts using transcranial magnetic stimulation
Neuroeconomics: How Neuroscience Can Inform Economics
Neuroeconomics uses knowledge about brain mechanisms to inform economic analysis, and roots economics in biology. It opens up the "black box" of the brain, much as organizational economics adds detail to the theory of the firm. Neuroscientists use many tools— including brain imaging, behavior of patients with localized brain lesions, animal behavior, and recording single neuron activity. The key insight for economics is that the brain is composed of multiple systems which interact. Controlled systems ("executive function") interrupt automatic ones. Emotions and cognition both guide decisions. Just as prices and allocations emerge from the interaction of two processes—supply and demand— individual decisions can be modeled as the result of two (or more) processes interacting. Indeed, "dual-process" models of this sort are better rooted in neuroscientific fact, and more empirically accurate, than single-process models (such as utility-maximization). We discuss how brain evidence complicates standard assumptions about basic preference, to include homeostasis and other kinds of state-dependence. We also discuss applications to intertemporal choice, risk and decision making, and game theory. Intertemporal choice appears to be domain-specific and heavily influenced by emotion. The simplified ß-d of quasi-hyperbolic discounting is supported by activation in distinct regions of limbic and cortical systems. In risky decision, imaging data tentatively support the idea that gains and losses are coded separately, and that ambiguity is distinct from risk, because it activates fear and discomfort regions. (Ironically, lesion patients who do not receive fear signals in prefrontal cortex are "rationally" neutral toward ambiguity.) Game theory studies show the effect of brain regions implicated in "theory of mind", correlates of strategic skill, and effects of hormones and other biological variables. Finally, economics can contribute to neuroscience because simple rational-choice models are useful for understanding highly-evolved behavior like motor actions that earn rewards, and Bayesian integration of sensorimotor information
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The hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and perirhinal cortex are critical to incidental order memory.
Considerable research in rodents and humans indicates the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex are essential for remembering temporal relationships among stimuli, and accumulating evidence suggests the perirhinal cortex may also be involved. However, experimental parameters differ substantially across studies, which limits our ability to fully understand the fundamental contributions of these structures. In fact, previous studies vary in the type of temporal memory they emphasize (e.g., order, sequence, or separation in time), the stimuli and responses they use (e.g., trial-unique or repeated sequences, and incidental or rewarded behavior), and the degree to which they control for potential confounding factors (e.g., primary and recency effects, or order memory deficits secondary to item memory impairments). To help integrate these findings, we developed a new paradigm testing incidental memory for trial-unique series of events, and concurrently assessed order and item memory in animals with damage to the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, or perirhinal cortex. We found that this new approach led to robust order and item memory, and that hippocampal, prefrontal and perirhinal damage selectively impaired order memory. These findings suggest the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex and perirhinal cortex are part of a broad network of structures essential for incidentally learning the order of events in episodic memory
Neural correlates of the affect heuristic during brand choice
In this working paper it is investigated how affect and cognition interact in consumer decision making. The research framework is multidisciplinary by applying a neuroscientific method to answer the question which information is processed during brand choice immediately when the decision is computed in the test person’s brain. In a neuroscientific experiment test persons perform binary decision-making tasks between different brands of the same product class. The results suggest that the presence of the respondent’s first choice brand leads to a specific modulation of the neural brain activity, which can be described as neural correlate of Slovic’s affect heuristic concept.Neuroeconomics, brand choice, cognition, affect
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Contextual bias and insulation against bias during aesthetic rating. The roles of VMPFC and DLPFC in neural valuation
The scientific study of aesthetic experience through the examination of the neural correlates of sensory and motor responses works of art and to other visual images has thrived during the last decade. The neural substrate of embodied responses to works of art, and to visual images more generally, has been the object of much attention. This research, however, has tended to sidestep the question of aesthetic preference and rating, and the neural correlates of contextual influences on such ratings. Responses in the domain of perception–action coupling have provided useful and important evidence for the role of somatic and emotional responses in viewers’ engagement with works of art. Nevertheless, the degree to which they form the basis of evaluation, ranking, and even judgment remains unclear. In this chapter we concentrate on the respective roles of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC) and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) during aesthetic evaluation, particularly the aesthetic evaluation of visual works of art. Activity in these areas is modulated by external contextual pressures on viewing. The roles of ACC, hippocampal and striatal connections in the process of rating and evaluating works of visual art, and the relationship between expert and non-expert responses, are also discussed
A unified coding strategy for processing faces and voices
Both faces and voices are rich in socially-relevant information, which humans are remarkably adept at extracting, including a person's identity, age, gender, affective state, personality, etc. Here, we review accumulating evidence from behavioral, neuropsychological, electrophysiological, and neuroimaging studies which suggest that the cognitive and neural processing mechanisms engaged by perceiving faces or voices are highly similar, despite the very different nature of their sensory input. The similarity between the two mechanisms likely facilitates the multi-modal integration of facial and vocal information during everyday social interactions. These findings emphasize a parsimonious principle of cerebral organization, where similar computational problems in different modalities are solved using similar solutions
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