Department of Marketing, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Prog Brain Res. 2013;202:267-88. doi: 10.1016/B978-0-444-62604-2.00015-0.
Neuroscience, by its nature, seems to hold considerable promise for understanding the fundamental mechanisms of decision making. In recent years, several studies in the domain of "neuroeconomics" or "decision neuroscience" have provided important insights into brain function. Yet, the apparent success and value of each of these domains are frequently called into question by researchers in economics and behavioral decision making. Critics often charge that knowledge about the brain is unnecessary for understanding decision preferences. In this chapter, I contend that knowledge about underlying brain mechanisms helps in the development of biologically plausible models of behavior, which can then help elucidate the mechanisms underlying individual choice biases and strategic preferences. Using a novel risky choice paradigm, I will demonstrate that people vary in whether they adopt compensatory or noncompensatory rules in economic decision making. Importantly, neuroimaging studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging reveal that distinct neural mechanisms support variability in choices and variability in strategic preferences. Converging evidence from a study involving decisions between hypothetical stocks illustrates how knowledge about the underlying mechanisms can help inform neuroanatomical models of cognitive control. Last, I will demonstrate how knowledge about these underlying neural mechanisms can provide novel insights into the effects of decision states like sleep deprivation on decision preferences. Together, these findings suggest that neuroscience can play a critical role in creating robust and flexible models of real-world decision behavior.
神经科学从本质上似乎为理解决策的基本机制提供了很大的希望。近年来，“神经经济学”或“决策神经科学”领域的几项研究为大脑功能提供了重要的见解。然而，经济学和行为决策领域的研究人员经常对这些领域的明显成功和价值提出质疑。批评者经常指责说，了解大脑对于理解决策偏好是不必要的。在本章中，我认为，了解潜在的大脑机制有助于开发具有生物学合理性的行为模型，这有助于阐明个体选择偏差和策略偏好的机制。我将使用一种新颖的风险选择范式来证明，人们在经济决策中是否采用补偿或非补偿规则方面存在差异。重要的是，使用功能磁共振成像的神经影像学研究表明，不同的神经机制支持选择的可变性和策略偏好的可变性。一项涉及假设股票之间决策的研究的综合证据说明了了解潜在机制的知识如何帮助告知认知控制的神经解剖学模型。最后，我将展示这些潜在的神经机制的知识如何为了解决策状态（如睡眠剥夺）对决策偏好的影响提供新的见解。总之，这些发现表明，神经科学可以在创建稳健和灵活的现实世界决策行为模型方面发挥关键作用。
