Stanford University psychologists are using brain images to learn more about why some people are impulse shoppers and others have an easier time holding on to their dough.
Experimental subjects were given $40 and the option to keep the money or to buy various consumer items as an fMRI recorded brain activity. Clear changes in activity made it possible for psychologists to predict whether or not a subject would choose to buy a particular item.
The nucleus accumbens, a collection of neurotransmitters related to dopamine reception, was activated each time a desired item was presented. However, if subjects were told the price of an item was too expensive, the insular cortex or insula, a part of the brain implicated in feelings of disgust, lit up. This also deactivated the mesial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), a response which lead researcher Brian Knutson has previously implicated in involved in reward processing.
Read more: The Voices in My Head Say 'Buy It!' Why Argue?
ABSTRACT: Neural Predictors of Purchases
del.icio.us |
digg |
FURL |
Netscape |
reddit |
Stumble! |
My Web
