Neural basis of utility estimation

Shizgal, Peter

doi:10.1016/s0959-4388(97)80008-6

Cited by 165 publications

(125 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(13 reference statements)

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“…Several authors have proposed that in order to integrate a disparate number of different rewards the brain uses a common network that converges in a final pathway that informs about the nature of the reward (comparison process) and about the possible courses of action in the future (Montague & Berns, 2002;Shizgal, 1997). Neurophysiological studies in animals revealed dopaminergic neurons in the midbrain projecting, among other regions, to the ventral striatum responding selectively to unpredicted events: (i) they are mostly responsive to appetetive events that are better than predicted, (ii) they do not respond to well-predicted rewards, and (iii) a negative signal (i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human oscillatory activity associated to reward processing in a gambling task

et al. 2008

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Human oscillatory activity associated to reward processing in a gambling task

et al. 2008

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“…(b) Emotions as the common currency One of the essential insights of more than a half-century of research on reward and punishment is that animals reduce multidimensional alternatives to a single common currency that facilitates comparison and substitution (McFarland & Sibly 1975;Shizgal 1997;Montague & Berns 2002). While discussions of common currency within neuroscience typically '[make] no reference to hedonistic experience' (Shizgal 1997, p. 198), following Rolls (1999), we propose that emotion serves as the common currency with which humans make intertemporal trade-offs.…”

Section: Introduction: the Explicit Trade-off Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Intangibility in intertemporal choice

Rick

Loewenstein

2008

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Since the advent of the discounted utility (DU) model, economists have thought about intertemporal choice in very specific terms. DU assumes that people make explicit trade-offs between costs and benefits occurring at different points in time. While this explicit trade-off perspective is simple and tractable, and has stimulated productive research, it does not provide a very realistic representation of a wide range of the most important intertemporal trade-offs that people face in daily life. If one considers the most important and commonly discussed examples of intertemporal choices, a striking pattern emerges: in almost all cases, early outcomes tend to be concrete (e.g. purchasing this latte), but later outcomes tend to be much less tangible (e.g. the unknown item that could have been purchased later with the money spent on this latte). We propose that people rely on anticipatory emotions as a proxy for intangible outcomes when trade-offs are implicit. This paper reviews neuroeconomic evidence that has begun to elucidate the role of anticipatory emotions in decisions involving intangible outcomes. Although most progress has been made in the domain of spending and saving, we discuss how the existing neuroeconomic research could be extended to other domains where trade-offs are ill defined.Keywords: neuroeconomics; behavioural economics; intertemporal choice; tangibility; consumer behaviourThe qualities most useful to ourselves are, first of all, superior reasons and understanding, by which we are capable of discerning the remote consequences of all our actions, and of foreseeing the advantage or detriment which is likely to result from them; and, secondly, self-command, by which we are enabled to abstain from present pleasure or to endure present pain, in order to obtain a greater pleasure or to avoid a greater pain in some future time. In the union of those two qualities consists the virtue of prudence, of all the virtues that which is most useful to the individual. Smith (1759Smith ( [1981), pp. 271-272, Theory of moral sentiments.

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“…First, the neural systems for approach-avoidance motivations have been shown to be lateralized: approach motivations are lateralized predominantly to the left hemisphere, whereas avoidance emotions are lateralized predominantly to the right hemisphere (44,45). Furthermore, electrical stimulation of different regions of the brain can unconditionally elicit approach and avoidance behavior (46)(47)(48)(49). For example, electrical stimulation of brain regions that receive projections from midbrain dopamine neurons-including the nucleus accumbens as well as mesial prefrontal cortex-elicits approach behavior.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture

Vartanian

Navarrete

Chatterjee

et al. 2013

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

277

324

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On average, we urban dwellers spend about 90% of our time indoors, and share the intuition that the physical features of the places we live and work in influence how we feel and act. However, there is surprisingly little research on how architecture impacts behavior, much less on how it influences brain function. To begin closing this gap, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study to examine how systematic variation in contour impacts aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions, outcome measures of interest to both architects and users of spaces alike. As predicted, participants were more likely to judge spaces as beautiful if they were curvilinear than rectilinear. Neuroanatomically, when contemplating beauty, curvilinear contour activated the anterior cingulate cortex exclusively, a region strongly responsive to the reward properties and emotional salience of objects. Complementing this finding, pleasantness-the valence dimension of the affect circumplex-accounted for nearly 60% of the variance in beauty ratings. Furthermore, activation in a distributed brain network known to underlie the aesthetic evaluation of different types of visual stimuli covaried with beauty ratings. In contrast, contour did not affect approach-avoidance decisions, although curvilinear spaces activated the visual cortex. The results suggest that the well-established effect of contour on aesthetic preference can be extended to architecture. Furthermore, the combination of our behavioral and neural evidence underscores the role of emotion in our preference for curvilinear objects in this domain.neuroaesthetics | design | curvature | habitat theory

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Neural basis of utility estimation

Cited by 165 publications

References 69 publications

Human oscillatory activity associated to reward processing in a gambling task

Human oscillatory activity associated to reward processing in a gambling task

Intangibility in intertemporal choice

Impact of contour on aesthetic judgments and approach-avoidance decisions in architecture

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