[extropy-chat] Neuroeconomics: Biotech Meets Economics

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Slashdot:The Economist has a story today introducing the concept of
Neuroeconomics, which uses brain scanning technology and neuroscience
to create new economic models and theories.
[http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/16/001241&tid=98&tid=191&tid=14]
The Economist: The current bout of research is made possible by the
arrival of new technologies such as functional magnetic-resonance
imaging, which allows second-by-second observation of brain activity.
At several American universities, economists and their collaborators
in the neurosciences have been placing human subjects in such brain
scanners and asking them to perform a variety of economic tasks and
games.
For example, the idea that humans compute the "expected value" of
future events is central to many economic models. Whether people will
invest in shares or buy insurance depends on how they estimate the
odds of future events weighted by the gains and losses in each case.
Your pension, for example, might have a very low expected value if
there is a large probability that bonds and shares will plunge just
before you retire.
[http://www.economist.com/finance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3556121]