NPR News Friday, July 24, 2009
Guests:
Michael J. Frank, assistant professor, Laboratory for Neural Computation and Cognition, Brown University
Jennifer S. Lerner, professor, Harvard Kennedy School, director, Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, Harvard University
Colin Camerer, professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics, California Institute of Technology
This news story contained was about a half hour long and contained a large amount of information, so briefly I’ll discuss what part of decision making each guest represented:
Colon Camerer elaborated on Behavioral/ Neuro-Economics and looking directly at brain function to try and measure the thought processes involved with decision making. In some of the research coming out of his institute it is found that certain areas of the brain are involved with self control and raising questions about what stimulates these areas for further studies.
Michael Frank pointed out that people have a habit of adaptively choosing things that have had a good outcome in the past but that sometimes we don’t know what the best outcome is of our actions until we explore. Researchers in his laboratory found that people who had a certain type of gene variation in their DNA were more likely to explore decisions that had uncertain outcomes than those that didn’t have the gene variation. The professor also explained that our brain can integrate our experiences to help make decisions between things that we have had experience with and that may be familiar.
Jennifer S Lerner clarified emotions in decision making and compared Integral Emotions: emotions you have about the decision your making, (ex how you would feel if if the decision turned out badly) and Incidental Emotions: emotions that the person happens to be having at the time of the decision. She also mentioned the role of using fMRI Scanners (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) to study the processes that influence decision making. The fMRI records blood flow and blood oxygen in certain areas of the brain and illuminates these areas on the brain image
The information from the above report, closely relates to the section in our book: “Decision Making” in chapter seven, “Thought, Language, and Intelligence.” The section on decision making discusses how we weigh options when making up our minds and how this process can be affected by biases or flaws. The news story clarifies what new research is being done in these areas to further our understanding of how decisions are influenced and what methods we can use to measure these influences. The roles of fMRI and TMS mentioned in the report not only apply to our understanding of the thought processes involved with decision making but were also mentioned in chapter 4 of our text, “Consciousness.”
Guests:
Michael J. Frank, assistant professor, Laboratory for Neural Computation and Cognition, Brown University
Jennifer S. Lerner, professor, Harvard Kennedy School, director, Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, Harvard University
Colin Camerer, professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics, California Institute of Technology
This news story contained was about a half hour long and contained a large amount of information, so briefly I’ll discuss what part of decision making each guest represented:
Colon Camerer elaborated on Behavioral/ Neuro-Economics and looking directly at brain function to try and measure the thought processes involved with decision making. In some of the research coming out of his institute it is found that certain areas of the brain are involved with self control and raising questions about what stimulates these areas for further studies.
Michael Frank pointed out that people have a habit of adaptively choosing things that have had a good outcome in the past but that sometimes we don’t know what the best outcome is of our actions until we explore. Researchers in his laboratory found that people who had a certain type of gene variation in their DNA were more likely to explore decisions that had uncertain outcomes than those that didn’t have the gene variation. The professor also explained that our brain can integrate our experiences to help make decisions between things that we have had experience with and that may be familiar.
Jennifer S Lerner clarified emotions in decision making and compared Integral Emotions: emotions you have about the decision your making, (ex how you would feel if if the decision turned out badly) and Incidental Emotions: emotions that the person happens to be having at the time of the decision. She also mentioned the role of using fMRI Scanners (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) to study the processes that influence decision making. The fMRI records blood flow and blood oxygen in certain areas of the brain and illuminates these areas on the brain image
The information from the above report, closely relates to the section in our book: “Decision Making” in chapter seven, “Thought, Language, and Intelligence.” The section on decision making discusses how we weigh options when making up our minds and how this process can be affected by biases or flaws. The news story clarifies what new research is being done in these areas to further our understanding of how decisions are influenced and what methods we can use to measure these influences. The roles of fMRI and TMS mentioned in the report not only apply to our understanding of the thought processes involved with decision making but were also mentioned in chapter 4 of our text, “Consciousness.”
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