Smart Economy

New study finds men & women may respond differently to negative & postive stimuli

New study finds men and women may respond differently to danger  ( or was it men are from Venus and women are from Mars?)

Researchers using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study brain  activation have found that men and women respond differently to positive and negative  stimuli, according to a study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"Men may direct more attention to sensory aspects of emotional stimuli and tend to
process them in terms of implications for required action, whereas women direct more
attention to the feelings engendered by emotional stimuli," said Andrzej Urbanik, M.D.,
Ph.D., chair of Radiology at Jagiellonian University Hospital in Krakow, Poland.

 

For the study, Dr. Urbanik and colleagues recruited 40 right-handed volunteers, 21 men and 19 women, between the ages of 18 and 36. The volunteers underwent fMRI while viewing pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), a widely used, standardized testing system comprised of several thousand slides of various objects and images from ordinary life designed to evoke defined emotional states. The images were displayed in two runs. For the first run, only negative pictures were shown. For the second run, only positive pictures were shown.

While viewing the negative images, women showed decidedly stronger and more extensive activation in the left thalamus, which relays sensory information to and from the cerebral cortex, including the pain and pleasure centers. Men exhibited more activation in the left insula, which gauges the physiological state of the entire body and then generates subjective feelings that can bring about actions.Information from the insula is relayed to other brain structures involved in decision making.

"The brain activation seen in the women might indicate stronger involvement of the neural circuit, which is associated with identification of emotional stimuli," Dr. Urbanik said. "The more pronounced activation of the insular cortex in the men might be related to the
autonomic components, such as elevated heart rate or increased sweating, that accompany watching emotional material."

The autonomic nervous system controls involuntary functions, including respiration, heart rate and digestion, and helps to adjust certain functions in response to stress or other environmental stimuli. It is responsible for the body's "fight or flight" response to threatening situations.

"In men, the negative images on the slides were more potent in driving their autonomic
system," Dr. Urbanik said. "This might signal that when confronted with dangerous
situations, men are more likely than women to take action."

While viewing positive images, women showed stronger and more extensive activation in the right superior temporal gyrus, which is involved in auditory processing and memory. Men exhibited stronger activation in the bilateral occipital lobes, which are associated with visual processing.

Dr. Urbanik believes these differences indicate that women may analyze positive stimuli in a broader social context and associate the positive images with a particular memory. Viewing a picture of a smiling toddler might evoke memories of a woman's own child at this age. Conversely, male responses are more perceptual.

 "Positive images are devoured by mens' visual and motivational systems," Dr. Urbanik said.

Walter Derzko

fMRI brain scanner can distinguish between a Picasso and a Dali

The 26 November 2009 issue of New Scientist has another story on how pattern recognition works in the mind.

Patterns in brain activity can be used to determine whether someone is looking at a surrealist landscape by Salvador Dali or the cubist lines of Pablo Picasso.

Researchers in  Kyoto, Japan,  showed 12 students dozens of Picassos and Dalis while scanning their brains using functional MRI. A program then identified patterns in activity that were unique to each artist.

When fed brain scans produced by students looking at fresh paintings by the same artists, the program correctly identified the painter better than chance alone: it was correct 83 per cent of the time among the six students who were art majors and 62 per cent of the time among the others (Source: NeuroReport, DOI: 10.1097/WNR.0b013e3283331322).

To identify the artists, the program relied on activity in multiple brain regions, not just visual ones. So John-Dylan Haynes at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, Germany, says the brain has an "abstract code" for different artistic styles, which could one day be used to classify art.

 http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427365.900-brain-scanner-can-tell-a-dali-from-a-picasso.html

How to double and triple the success rate of all entrepreneurs in a country

What do creativity, problem-solving, conflict resolution, sense-making, innovation, discovery, design, invention,  entrepreneurship, recovery and job creation  all have in common? What's the common denominator here?

......THINKING SKILLS .....

This week I attended the Youth Entrepreneurship Summit in Toronto sponsored by cybf.ca  and Industry Canada as part of Global Entrepreneuship Week.

In discussions with participants and in the Q&A session I made the business case that we should be teaching both critical and creative/lateral thinking skills to all children starting in public school…and right through college and university and  especially to kids at risk such as our Native Indian population.

We’ve been teaching  lateral thinking skills to gifted kids across Canada for the past 40 years (so we know how to teach it and we know it works) and Corporate Canada regularly sends its top CEOs and managers  to attend courses on lateral thinking by Edward de Bono, yet we ignore the rest of the entire population-heaven forbid that we actually teach them to be effective thinkers. People who have paid property tax to support our education system should get refunds because the education system has failed us, since most kids exit the school system cognitively deficient !!

 In grade one, when we start to learn numbers, teachers first teach us the operacy skills behind numbers, which are plus, subtract, multiply and divide and then we go on to higher order operations which are based on these basic cognitive operations. But when we switch from numbers to ideas, notions, values and assumptions we somehow forget that we need to teach the corresponding critical and lateral thinking skills to invent and explore ideas.

 Research shows that kids who are taught lateral thinking as a separate subject as early as grade one or two, show a corresponding grade improvement across all subject areas.

 In the UK,  kids at risk(who are already full of street smarts) and  who were taught a ½ day workshop on lateral thinking skills as teens,  later grew up to become successful entrepreneurs or community leaders at a percentage rate that was far greater then the normal population. When I taught a course on lateral thinking skills in business at Conestoga College in Kitchener Ontario in the 1990s, it was one of the most popular as voted by students.

 Just think how much more successful all entrepreneurs would be if they all had a background and knew  how to overtly use and apply their cognitive skills..and we already have an under-utilized mentor network-gifted ed teachers can mentor entrepreneurship lectures and professors.

Walter Derzko

Does modernization affect children's cognitive development?

I'm reporting this week from Europe. I'm en route back to Toronto via Madrid, Spain and Paris after attending and speaking at the 11 th Forum on Social Trends in Merida, Spain, which was hosted  by the Fundacion Sistema.

Since I was exploring and discussing technolohy evolution, opportunity recognition and social impacts, this press release today caught my attention--Walter Derzko

[...]

Societal and technological changes have taken place at a dizzying pace over recent decades. A new cross-cultural study aimed to determine whether these dramatic changes have had an effect on the thinking skills that are learned over the course of childhood.

The study, by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, and Pitzer College, is published in the November/December 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.

Using previously collected data from the late 1970s, the researchers looked at almost 200 children ages 3 to 9 in Belize, Kenya, Nepal, and American Samoa. When the data were collected, these four communities differed in the availability of resources that are typically associated with modernity, such as having writing tablets and books, electricity, a home-based water supply, a radio and TV set, and a car.

Children in communities with more modern resources performed better in some areas of cognitive functioning, such as certain types of memory and pattern recognition, and they took part in more complex sequences of play.

The researchers note that these differences don't mean that children from more modern communities are more advanced intellectually; rather, the findings reflect the cognitive skills that are valued and promoted in the communities where the children live.

"Childhood is changing rapidly around the world," according to Mary Gauvain, professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, and the study's lead author. "Increased urbanization; massive shifts in economic, political, and social conditions; and changes in how we communicate have a significant impact on children's everyday lives. Better understanding of how intellectual development is shaped and directed by the forces of modernization can give us insights into the psychological consequences of globalization."

The investigators chose to examine children from 3 to 9 because they wanted to explore the shift in cognitive performance and social responsibility that occurs in most children between ages 5 and 7, regardless of where they live. In the study, they also explored the role of the Flynn effect, which asserts that there's been a rise in performance on certain parts of IQ tests over the past several generations due to modernization. This study showed that such changes reflect the presence of certain modern resources.

More information: Child Development, Vol. 80, Issue 6, Contributions of Societal Modernity to Cognitive Development: A Comparison of Four Cultures by Gauvain, M (University of California, Riverside), and Munroe, RL (Pitzer College).

Source: Society for Research in Child Development

Deciding if the glass is half full or half empty ? Are you a optimist or pessimist?

 

A brand new issue, an uncertain ambiguous item or an unexpected discovery falls on your desk on Monday morning. You need to quickly decide if it’s an immediate threat or opportunity for your organization that requires some type of action or if it’s a non-issue that can be ignored for the time being.

How do managers or entrepreneurs decide  that? Are there tradeoffs? People often use the half full or half empty glass visual as a metaphor to distinguish between the optimists (opportunity seekers) and pessimists (threat-focused or threat  avoiders). But it’s not as easy as it may seem at first. To decide which side of the ledger you fall under, try the following three steps

 

1) Trust your gut feel

Trust you initial gut feel. You will find that you are usually right. How do you feel about issue X? What does your instinct tell you about this new or emerging  issue or situation? Is it an opportunity or threat? Or possibly both?  In the Opportunity Clinic we typically observe four different responses:

-I feel positive and optimistic about this issue

-I sense a queasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. I’m  mostly negative and pessimistic about this. 

-or are you simply Indifferent or  passive?  I don’t see any current or future impacts on my business.

-or are you uncertain? It could be both a threat or challenge or an opportunity, depending on changing or uncertain circumstances

What’s your gut answer? __________________________

 

2) Try a more rational, critical analytical approach

Run through the list of 31 attributes and opposite matching pairs below in Table 1. On each line, circle an attribute (with a solid line) either on the left or right hand side of the table depending on how you view an issue. If you are unsure, draw a circle with a dotted line, to remind you to look for more information to reinforce your decision.

Count up the number of circles in each column to tell you if you view the issue as a threat or opportunity or possibly both.

Has you view changed from your gut feel decision in step 1 or has it been reinforced?

 

3) Repeat step 1 and 2 with others

Repeat step 1 and 2 with others in your department, division or other parts of the organization. What do external stakeholders say? What’s the general consensus on an emerging issue?

 

Table 1-How do you view an emerging issue? Attributes to tell you if the glass is half full or half empty?

	Opportunity	Threat
1	Positive	Negative
2	May gain, won’t lose	May lose,  won’t gain
3	Have means to resolve	Others constrain your actions
4	Qualified to act	Under-qualified to act
5	Have Autonomy	Resolution initiated by others
6	Resolution is likely	Resolution unlikely
7	Have choice whether to act	Must act, pressured
8	Future focused	Embedded in the past
9	Benefits come from acting vs inaction	Action brings no benefits
10	Stimulating
11	Can gain personal advantage	Personal loss from acting
12	Want association	Desire no association
13	Have responsibility	Not responsible
14	Issue is visible	Issue is visible
15	Many solutions vs one solution	One solution
16	Unique
17	Agree how to resolve	Conflict about  how to resolve; Resolution will be by chance
18	Easy to resolve	Difficult to resolve
19	Obvious Solution
20	Not crisis	Crisis
21	Urgent	Urgent; Not urgent
22		Neutral;  won’t loose or gain much
23	Future better if issue resolved	Future no better when resolved
24	Enduring vs Temporary
25	Pressure, vs No pressure
26	Stress-full	Stress-full
27	Success or failure visible	Success or failure visible
28	High priority	Ambiguous priorities
29	Consequences / implications for the future	Consequences / implications for the future
30	Challenge	Challenge
31	In direct competition with other opportunities

From the Opportunity Clinic © 1985-2009  (adapted from Discerning Threats and Opportunities from Jackson and Dutton 1988) and the soon-to-be released book: Opportunity-45 Scenario to drive your business in challenging times by Walter Derzko, published by J Wiley and Sons 2010

Walter Derzko

 

Brain to Brain (B2B) Communication possible, through the power of thought alone

Communicating person to person through the power of thought alone

 

New research from the University of Southampton in the UK has demonstrated that it is possible for communication from person to person through the power of thought alone. Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI) can be used for capturing brain signals and translating them into commands that allow humans to control (just by thinking) devices such as computers, robots, rehabilitation technology and virtual reality environments.

This experiment goes a step further and was conducted by Dr Christopher James from the University's Institute of Sound and Vibration Research. The aim was to expand the current limits of this technology and show that brain-to-brain (B2B) communication is possible.

 

Full paper here

 

Walter Derzko

Goal setting fine on paper & in text books, but not always in the real world; Expert serial entrepreneurs and MBA's think differently

The notion of goal setting has been the core philosophy of countless MBA programs, thousands of self-help book and pop psycology articles and magazines and the benchmark tactic promoted by legions of career counselors, business coaches and scores of consultants of all stripes.

Sounds rational and logical on paper and in MBA text book? Right? But does it work in all cases in real life? No...according to a new Swiss and US study that compared how successful expert serial entrepreneurs and novice MBA students think and approach problem-solving.

"Traditional goal setting methodologygy may be fine in a stable world where your assumptions hold true consistently over time but it may not work as well in an ever changing turbulent world, with new emerging world views and ever-shifting mental models and business models of how things work."--Walter Derzko 

The study asked 27 expert serial successful entrepreneurs and 37 novice MBA students to think “out loud” & continuously as they were given decision-making problems in creating a fictional  new venture. Transcripts were analyzed and results showed that experts framed problems in dramatically different ways –in fact, diametrically opposed to the MBA students who followed the textbook. Experts framed problems more using “effectual”  logic, while MBA students largely used “predictive” logic.  

Effectual logic ignores long term goals as the starting point for the time being and proceeds outward from means and causes to new effects and unanticipated ends. MBA students, as per their conventional goal-setting  training proceeded in the opposite direction, using predictive logic, starting with predetermined effects or goals and strived for means and causal paths that would direct them toward these pre-selected goals.

 A simple example: compare  a chef who cooks from a recipe in a cook book (causal, predictive logic) vs a chef who imagines possible meal variations from the ingredients available at hand (effectual logic)

Using effective logic, serial expert entrepreneurs identified more potential markets, focused more on building the venture as a whole, payed less attention to predictive information, worried more about making do with resources on hand to invest only what they could afford to lose, and emphasized stitching together networks of partnerships. Novice MBA students using “predictive frame” missed most of the above issues when tending  to “go by the textbook.”

 

This study argues that we need to challenge and rethink the standard business MBA curriculum- how and what we teach MBA students about entrepreneurship and urges researchers to better understand how and why seasoned serial entrepreneurs develop effectual framing logic through their years of experience.

 

 

The table below summarizes the differences between effectual logic and predictive logic

 

Causal Predictive Logic	Effectual Logic
View of the future Predictive. Causal logic frames the future as a continuation of the past. Hence accurate prediction is both necessary and useful.	View of the future Creative. Effectual logic frames the future as shaped (at least partially) by willful agents. Prediction is  therefore neither easy nor useful.
Basis for taking action Goal-oriented. In the causal frame, goals, even when constrained by limited means, determine sub-goals. Goals determine actions, including which individuals to bring on board.	Basis for taking action Means-oriented. In the effectual frame, goals emerge by imagining courses of action based on given means. Similarly, who comes on board determines what can be and needs to be done. And not vice versa.
Predisposition toward risk and resources Expected return. Causal Logic frames the new venture creation problem as one of pursuing the (risk-adjusted) maximum opportunity and raising required resources to do so. The focus here is on the upside potential.	Predisposition toward risk and resources Affordable loss. Effectual logic frames the problem as one of pursuing adequately satisfactory opportunities without investing more resources than stakeholders can afford to lose. The focus here is on limiting downside potential.
Attitude toward outsiders Competitive analysis. Causal frames promulgate a competitive attitude toward outsiders. Relationships are driven by competitive analyses and the desire to limit dilution of ownership as far as possible	Attitude toward outsiders Partnerships.  Effectual frames advocate stitching together partnerships to create new markets. Relationships, particularly equity partnerships drive the shape and trajectory of the new venture.
Attitudes toward unexpected  contingencies Avoiding. Accurate predictions, careful planning and unwavering focus on targets form hallmarks of causal frames. Contingencies,  therefore, are seen as obstacles to be avoided.	Attitudes toward unexpected contingencies Leveraging. Eschewing predictions, imaginative re-thinking of possibilities and continual transformations of targets characterize effectual frames. Contingencies, \therefore, are seen as opportunities for novelty creation — and hence to be leveraged.

 

 

Source: The Opportunity Clinic and Effectual versus predictive logics in entrepreneurial decision-making. Differences between experts and novices. Dew, Read, Sarasvathy and Witbank. Journal of Business Venturing, 24 (4)  (July 2009) 287-309

 

 

Walter Derzko

Entrepreneurial & Opportunity Brain Drain in USA and Europe**

People create opportunities. So any abrupt changes in migration and immigration flows and patterns matter a great deal. Many studies have shown that highly educated immigrants have a higher likelihood of starting new business ventures then the general population at large, so immigrant influx into Canada and the USA are critical in maintaining a global competitive edge. Immigrant entrepreneurs where largely responsible for many of the startups in Silicon Valley.

So it’s disturbing to see a study that reports  that immigrants with advance education are increasingly likely to return home after taking advanced degrees in the US, leaving the country that trained them facing potential skills shortages and increased competition. This bodes well for emerging markets but not for western developed economies. “A combination of changing perceptions about where opportunity lies, rising nationalist sentiment in the face of a global recession, and poorly thought-out immigration policies, is said to have caused the shift in sentiment and behavior” observe researchers. Among the other reasons given for leaving the U.S.were better economic opportunities at home, a desire to be with friends and family, and concerns about job prospects and the availability of visas

Data also supports that the same is happening with foreign students studying in Europe. Researchers see a fair amount of returnees from Europe, attracted back to China and India due to the opportunities in their home countries. If countries do not provide an innovation-friendly overall environment, where highly skilled workers can use, create and disseminate knowledge, then attracting more workers might not lead to better innovation and economic growth outcomes anyway.

In October 2008, the above researchers [1] polled 1,224 foreign nationals from Facebook, who were either studying in U.S. institutions of higher learning, or recent graduates. They found that only 25% of Indian students, 9% of European students and  7% of Chinese students, thought the best days for the American economy lay ahead. More significantly,  74% of Chinese students and 86% of Indian students felt the best days for their home country's economies lay ahead.

Other disturbing results for America showed that only 6% of Indian, 10% of Chinese and 15% of Europeans intended to settle permanently in the United States. The number of graduates who wanted to stay in the U.S.for a few years also fell, with only 58% of Indian, 54% of Chinese and 40% of European students wanting to stay on. Earlier National Science Foundation research showed that 92% of Chinese students and 85% for Indian students stayed for five years or more. [2]

The students polled were also more of an entrepreneurial group; 64% of Indian, 66% of European and 68% of Chinese students said they wanted to start a business in the next decade, with most of the Indian and Chinese students hoping to do so in their home countries.

[1} Losing the World's Best and Brightest: America's New Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Part V, a study sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

[2] West 'Hemorrhaging' Its Best Brains, Study Claims Luke Collins. Research Technology Management. Arlington: Jul/Aug 2009. Vol. 52, Iss. 4; pg. 2, 4 pgs

 

**An excerpt From the soon-to-be-released book -Hard Times, Golden Opportunites by Walter Derzko;  publisher-J Wiley and Sons

High population density triggers cultural explosions & innovations; Environment not Brains; Nature vs Nurture

Last year, I toured the Royal Ontario Museum exhibit in Toronto– Mysteries of Ancient Ukraine: The Remarkable Trypilian Culture (5400-2700 BC). What was even  more remarkable and mysterious  then the brilliant Trypilian cultural artifacts themselves, was the notion  of uniqueness--why this cultural innovation only existed in a tiny, small geographic area, on what is modern day Ukraine and not the rest of the globe-long before Egypt or Mexico or  Mesapotania?

 

No one seemed to have addressing this question in the exhibit nor is it covered in our modern day high school textbooks.

 

The Union Soviet (..read Russians)  had little to no motivation to promote these archeological discoveries to the rest of the world, which are as exciting as Egypt and which date back over 100 years to the late 1800's,  because of a cultural & political bias and propaganda perspective. Ukraine was considered by Russia's propaganda machine, as a "younger brother" to "mother Russia", and not the older, wiser culture. Seven centuries ago Russia was nothing more then barren,uninhabited swamp land. This is why the West is  only hearing about the Trypilian culture now, after the brakeup /collapse  of the Soviet Union.

 

Trypilion culture even pre-dates Egypt, the pyramids and the Inca's.

 

So I have to ask myself--Were Trypilians smarter then anyone else on the planet  those 7 centuries ago?  Was Tryplia the Silicon Valley of its time? I don't think so. I don't see any cognitive evidence to this affect.

 

Coincidently though , Trypillian culture also designed and built  the first large scale  cities in neolithic Europe, ranging in size up to 20,000 inhabitants. But, just as mysteriously 4.5 centuries ago, they disappeared from the face of the earth without a trace.

 

Researchers from University College London now seem to offer a partial explanation to address my curiosity.....high population density triggers cultural explosions & as well as reversals. So was Ukraine at the cross-roads of many neolithic cultures coming out of Africa and criss-crossing between Asia and Europe? The neolythic silks roads?

 

Increasing population density, rather than boosts in human brain power, appears to have catalyzed the emergence of modern human behaviour, according to a new study by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal Science. High population density leads to greater exchange of ideas and skills and prevents the loss of new innovations. It is this skill maintenance, combined with a greater probability of useful innovations, that led to modern human behaviour appearing at different times in different parts of the world. 

 

In the study, the UCL team found that complex skills learnt across generations can only be maintained when there is a critical level of interaction between people. Using computer simulations of social learning, they showed that high and low-skilled groups could coexist over long periods of time and that the degree of skill they maintained depended on local population density or the degree of migration between them. Using genetic estimates of population size in the past, the team went on to show that density was similar in sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Middle-East when modern behaviour first appeared in each of these regions. The paper also points to evidence that population density would have dropped for climatic reasons at the time when modern human behaviour temporarily disappeared in sub-Saharan Africa.

Adam Powell, AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity, says: "Our paper proposes a new model for why modern human behaviour started at different times in different regions of the world, why it disappeared in some places before coming back, and why in all cases it occurred more than 100,000 years after modern humans first appeared.

"By modern human behaviour, we mean a radical jump in technological and cultural complexity, which makes our species unique. This includes symbolic behavior, such as abstract and realistic art, and body decoration using threaded shell beads, ochre or tattoo kits; musical instruments; bone, antler and ivory artefacts; stone blades; and more sophisticated hunting and trapping technology, like bows, boomerangs and nets.

Professor Stephen Shennan, UCL Institute of Archaeology, says: "Modern humans have been around for at least 160,000 to 200,000 years but there is no archaeological evidence of any technology beyond basic stone tools until around 90,000 years ago. In Europe and western Asia this advanced technology and behaviour explodes around 45,000 years ago when humans arrive there, but doesn't appear in eastern and southern Asia and Australia until much later, despite a human presence. In sub-Saharan Africa the situation is more complex. Many of the features of modern human behaviour – including the first abstract art – are found some 90,000 years ago but then seem to disappear around 65,000 years ago, before re-emerging some 40,000 years ago.

Dr Mark Thomas, UCL Genetics, Evolution and Environment, says: "When we think of how we came to be the sophisticated creatures we are, we often imagine some sudden critical change, a bit like when the black monolith appears in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In reality, there is no evidence of a big change in our biological makeup when we started behaving in an intelligent way. Our model can explain this even if our mental capacities are the same today as they were when we first originated as a species some 200,000 years ago.

"Ironically, our finding that successful innovation depends less on how smart you are than how connected you are seems as relevant today as it was 90,000 years ago."

Full story here>>[...]

.....So was it climate change that killed off the Trypilians or did they integrate into another neolithic culture in Europe?

Walter Derzko,

Smart Economy, Toronto

Author of the soon-to-be-released book: Hard Times Golden Opportunities.. about opportunity recognition in a recession/ depression featuring 45 opportunity scenarios.

Neural mechanisms of strategic decision making; Go or No-Go?

New research demonstrates that when faced with a difficult decision, the human brain calls upon multiple neural systems that code for different sorts of behaviors and strategies.

The study, published by Cell Press in the May 28th issue of the journal Neuron, provides intriguing insight into the mechanisms that help the human brain rise to the formidable challenge of adaptive decision making in the real world.

"When faced with a complex decision, many individuals engage in simplifying strategies, such as choosing based on the probability of a positive outcome," explains senior study author Dr. Scott Huettel from the Brain Imaging and Analysis Center at Duke University. "Although we now know much about how the brain encodes specific decision factors like risk and reward, much less is known about the brain selects among multiple strategies for managing the computational demands of a complex decision-making task."

To distinguish brain regions that predict specific choices from those areas that predict an individual's preferred strategy, Dr. Huettel and colleagues used behavioral tests and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study participants engaging in a complex risky choice task. The task involved economic gambles with multiple outcomes ranging from large monetary losses to large monetary gains. Subjects chose between different ways of changing the gambles: they could maximize the best possible gain, minimize the worst possible loss, or increase the overall probability of winning.

 

Choices that maximized gains or minimized losses were predicted by fMRI activation in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex or anterior insula, respectively, whereas probability-maximizing choices were associated with activation in the parietal and lateral prefrontal cortices. However, individuals differed in their strategic bias: some people were very focused on gains and losses, while others were very focused on the probability of winning.

Whether an individual expressed these biases in a particular decision was predicted by activation in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, which exhibited functional connectivity to the regions associated with specific choices.

 

Further, the intrinsic strategic bias of each person—whether they were focused on rewards or probabilities—was predicted by an independent measure of how strongly their brain responded to unexpected gains and losses.

 

Importantly, decision parameters estimated using traditional economic models of risky choice were poor predictors of choices in this new experimental paradigm, supporting the idea that individuals indeed engaged in simplifying strategies.

 

"Our findings indicate that the neural mechanisms of choice reflect more than competition between decision variables; they additionally involve strategic influences that guide decisions differently across individuals," offers Dr. Huettel.

 

Walter Derzko

Smart Economy

Toronto