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A brain scan nathanial burton-bradford via Flickr/Creative Commons

Scientists have almost found a way to predict our decisions

The new technique uses brain scans to monitor the decision making process, and although it has only been used on small sample, the results are promising.

ECONOMISTS ARE ALWAYS trying to predict how people will react to new polices or choices by looking at decisions they’ve already made.

However, researchers from CalTech and Stanford have taken an early step towards predicting choices by looking at people’s brains when they’re looking at various prospects but not yet making a decision.

Most prior research has focused on what the brain looks like at the moment of choice. Far more interesting to economists are the sort of things that can help map out choices in advance.

In research described in a new National Bureau of Economic Research paper, Alec Smith, Colin Camerer, and Antonio Rangel of CalTech and B. Douglas Bernheim of Stanford had subjects look at pictures of 100 snacks while undergoing fMRI brain scans. After that, they asked them to choose between 50 pairs of snacks, also while being scanned. Finally, they were asked to rate how much they liked each option.

68.2% success rate

To figure out what sort of neural responses might be predictive, the researchers built a model using data from 48 choices that tried to predict the choice in the two excluded.

For more than half of individual participants, the model worked significantly better at predicting choices than an uninformed choice. Though some of the predictions weren’t particularly confident, the overall success rate was 68.2%.

Here’s the chart showing the success rate based on how many voxels (data points) were retained:

Success rates from the experiment. If you’re having trouble viewing the image, click here. (Image Credit: NBER)

If, as the research implies, there are similar neural indicators across people, more data researchers should be able to create one predictive model and use it on new people, rather than having to recalibrate it each time. That would allow for much larger scale research in areas in which economists traditionally have a lot of trouble.

The researchers argue that this would be particularly useful in the sorts of situations where similar situations or good data aren’t available, or people might be biased in how they make hypothetical choices. An example given by the authors of the former is how much people value pristine coastlines or biodiversity.

As for hypothetical questions, people systematically overstate their willingness to pay for things, and their preference for choices that cast them in a better personal light.

It’s important to note that this is extremely early work on a small sample. It looks at a relatively simple choice, a good amount of data had to be removed from the analysis, and it isn’t compared to alternatives for prediction. It’s expensive, time consuming, and doesn’t appear to work for everybody.

But it’s a step with huge potential towards both getting a better understanding of why and how people make choices, and getting the sort of useful, predictive information that economists always want but rarely get.

Max Nisen

Read: Blow to the head leaves Australian woman with French accent >

More: ‘Budding psychopaths’ can be identified ‘by how they react to people in pain’ >

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    Mute Ben Mc Loughlin
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:11 PM

    I haven’t even read the article…sometimes i just love to read comments.

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    Mute Paul Moore
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:37 PM

    Me too brother, or I look at boobies

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrwKIGD0H5Q

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    Mute chloe coyle
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    Aug 11th 2013, 9:45 PM

    Why do you link that song all the time?

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    Mute Mary Griffin
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    Aug 11th 2013, 11:09 PM

    @ Ben – You know what – I read it and have not a clue what it is all about. So no point trying to predict me.

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    Mute Tonybeegood
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:07 PM

    68.2% isn’t too impressive. Not exactly foolproof is it?

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    Mute Killjoy
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:13 PM

    It’s very impressive actually

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    Mute Tonybeegood
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:18 PM

    In other news: Dublin almost find a way to beat Cork.

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    Mute Kevin Denny
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:44 PM

    fMRI studies are usually small – it’s expensive to do & having your head inside a big magnet isn’t much fun. So it’s promising that they found something.

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    Mute Alan Lawlor
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:42 PM

    I can predict some peoples choices:
    The socialist: Tax the rich!
    The right winger: We need more guns and police
    The libertarian: its turning in to a nanny state, stay out of our business
    Many people are predictable and a lot make decisions based on their own prejudices and on very little information. So I can see this working a lot.

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    Mute Ronan McGrath
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:21 PM

    I was waiting to see how long somebody would make a tenuous link between this article and the government, looks like we have a new record

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    Mute Annette Temple
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    Aug 11th 2013, 6:15 PM

    The subjects chose between 48 pairs and the scientists predicted what they would choose out of the other two pairs??

    I bet if do just as well as the scientists on that 50/50 choice?! :)

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    Mute Gavin Cooke
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:25 PM

    Why do people waste money on pointless research like this when people are dying from cancer and other disases every day,get your priorites right

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    Mute Jay Christo
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    Aug 11th 2013, 6:16 PM

    Well done Gavin, that’s definitely the most ignorant thing I’ve read all day

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    Mute Gavin Cooke
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    Aug 11th 2013, 6:27 PM

    Clearly you havent done much reading today so.

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    Mute Jay Christo
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    Aug 11th 2013, 10:37 PM

    I read a few tabloids but your comment still came out on top.

    Calling research pointless just because you can’t see any immediate benefit is narrow minded and plain ignorant. If attitudes like yours dictated the direction of scientific research we would not have the kind of technology we do today. For example take space exploration, it seems fairly useless to the average person but the robotic technology developed to build pointless space probes is now being used in hospitals for robotic surgery.

    The benefits of research are not always immediately apparent and benefits can arise in unexpected ways. Slating research as pointless is short sighted and ridiculous.

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    Mute AggressiveSecularist
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    Aug 11th 2013, 6:51 PM

    There have been experiments conductef that show decisions are made in the brain before we become consciously aware of them. Kind of puts a dent in the assumption that we all have free will.

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    Mute Kevin Elliott
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    Aug 11th 2013, 9:55 PM

    If you are talking about Libet’s experiment then 1) He never claimed his findings opposed the existence of free will and 2) Recent experiments call in to question the assumptions made from his findings

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22144-brain-might-not-stand-in-the-way-of-free-will.html#.Ugf34aa9LCQ

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    Mute FlopFlipU
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:46 PM

    You are right Alan ,I knew you say that

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    Mute Jim Lenihan
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:08 PM

    they could start with the td in the dail

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    Mute FreeThinker
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:22 PM

    Minority Report.

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    Mute Ray McLoughney
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:08 PM

    They haven’t decided if they have found it yet

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    Mute bob®
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    Aug 11th 2013, 5:24 PM

    “I am Jeremy Kyles wet dream”, national geographic September edition.

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    Mute Tadhg Luby
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    Aug 15th 2013, 8:20 PM

    There’s a Marcus de Sautoy doc’ on Youtube called “The Secret of Me” which shows this experiment. They could predict decisions 6 sec before he made them, freaky.

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