[SOUND].

[MUSIC] So, before we will start our journey into

neuroeconomics, I would like to make a short stop and discuss some philosophical
major implications of neuroeconomics. So, as we will see, using brain imaging
techniques. We can actually predict our decisions. So as you see here, this is e
xample from
Brian Kuntson's study that will be discussed in
the follow up lectures. We can predict purchasing decisions of the
subjects. It's not an ideal prediction, but it's
still above chance level. So, already now, we can predict our
decisions. By brain activity. Does it change our view to the nature of
our decisions. Our view on our freedom to their idea of
review. I personally think that, it does change
our review on freedom in general. So, are we free when we make decisions? So, it
's an illusion that we can make a
free decisions. But our decisions in reality are
preprogrammed by our brain. We simply do not know the reasons of our
decisions. And we explain our decisions by some
external additional factors. Simply not knowing the actual reason why neuron net
works programmed or selected
certain decisions. So, this actually not a new idea in
neuroscience. That we have an illusion of our control
over decisions. So, Benjamin Libet conducted the famous
experiment already this 30 years ago. So he invented a very smart technique. Ima
gine you see a version of the clock on
the screen. You see this moving dot. And now you have a very simple decision to
make, please move left or right finger. At any moment of time, so that would be
a
voluntary decision to move finger. But please, remember the position of the
dot at the moment when you will be aware of your decision to
move your finger. So, with this technique, we can actually
detect the moment when you become aware of the decision to make
movement with your finger. So with this technique Libet contacted a
very smart experiment and recorded 30 years ago the brain signal
related to the decision making. So he actually used eg electronic
[UNKNOWN] to detect brain activity related to the
decision. Now here you see a simplified version of
his results. So this line indicates a brain signal
related to the decision to move finger. A red line, vertical red line indicates
a
moment when subject became aware about their
decision to move finger. But you see that brain signals starts. Far before peopl
e become aware of their
intentions. So, a couple of hundred milliseconds
before we become aware of our intention, we can predict the
decision by brain activity. So, it raises a question about our
freedom. It's just illusion that we can mm, have a
control over our decisions. Perhaps our decisions are simply
programmed by the brain. So, recently, this study was replicated with more compl
ex functional MRI
technique. Basically the same paradigm was used. Subject could see on a screen a
stream of
letters. And subject has to move finger, but she
has to remember the letter on the screen. That is presented at the same time whe
n
the subject is aware of the intention to move
finger. So, at the end of the trial, the subject
is exposed to a matrix of letters, and on this matrix, she has to indicate which
letter corresponds to the onset of
the decision. So, with this technique we can detect at
which moment. Subject became aware about the

intention,the intention to make a move. So here we see a result of the functiona

l
MRI study. On the right, you see a graph representing
a prediction of the decision. Derived from the brain data. So using a quite comp
lex analysis, you can actually predict decision few seconds
before the decision was made and few seconds before subject became aware about t
he
decision. So red vertical line indicate the moment. When subject became aware of
the intention
to move finger. Eight seconds before we can predict this
decision by the brain activity. Eight second is enormous period, one, two,
three, four, five, six, seven, eight, which is very long
time. I can predict the decision of the subject
using [INAUDIBLE] techniques. So this experiment was recently replicated
with a more advanced [INAUDIBLE] MRI [INAUDIBLE] test
layer for MRI scanner. So here once again, you see that vertical
red line indicate the moment when subject become
aware about the decision. But nine seconds before you can predict
this decision based on the brain activity of the frontal
cortex. So does it give us quite new insights
about our nature, about our freedom? Actually in my opinion suggests that we
have kind of illusion. For control of our decisions. In reality our decisions ar
e programmed by
the brain and we just explain our decisions to have a
coherent picture of the world. This is not a new idea: lot of
philosophers like Luther Spinoza and Kant actually suggested that we simply
have an illusion of a freedom. Spinoza nicely. Summarized it, suggesting that ju
st not
knowing causes of our action is a idea of freedom. So currently, we try to rep,
replace
philosophical arguments by the full version of the human
brain. So if we do know the. structure, the physiology of the brain
activity, underlying decision making. We can predict we have some decisions fire
advance when we become aware about our intentions to
make these decisions. So, for different opinions in the society for newer econom
ics, so different people
think differently. Some people think that neuroeconomics is still kept open an o
pportunity for
freedom. I, to be honest, believe that currently
neuroeconomics suggests that we have more or less illusion of the freedom or
the control over our decisions. Our decisions are programmed by complex
neuronal networks. We will discuss these networks in detail
during the course. But our cautiousness simply rationalize
the results of the activity of these networks. And this is a not new idea. So I
will just give you a famous psychological example illustrating choice
blindness, so called choice blindness. So imagine a subject has to select betwee
n
two photos. Here you see two females. And you can select between these two
photos. For example, subject selected left photo. But, experimenter manipulates
photos, and
instead of photo, left photo, gives right photo. So subject never selected right
photo. But, she gets this photo. So what happens? Only in 26% of the trials peo
ple recognize
that they haven't made this choice. So, most of the people blindly accept what
they, this kind of choice. They never mate, and what is interesting,
people nicely explained their decisions, the
decision to never mate. For example, here you can see some
explanations. This girl looks like my aunt, or this girl
looks very hot. People nicely explained decisions they
never made. Because the decisions were manipulated by

the experiment data. It's a good illustration of choice

blindness. We have an illusion that we understand the reasons and the motivation
of our
behavior. But instead our behavior can be very much
programmed by neurons taking into account various factors that
we are not aware of. So. Neuroscience of Decision Making for
Economics is trying to build a model that would explain the nature of
our decisions. That would go below our subjective
experience and would explain us real reasons for or
being. Of course, some of you can believe that we
steal space for freedom. Some perhaps would be more pessimistic
about it, so I would be happy to get your opinions during this course
about these problems, but I think in a way neuro economics is extremely provocat
ive and interesting
field, and this idea that neuroscience can bring us
new perspectives of on our behavior. It's not very new. I would mention now elim
inative
materialism of Paul Churchland who suggested, for
example, psychology is a kind of folk science that will be eventually replaced b
y the full version of
neuroscience. Perhaps it will never happen, it will
happen in,uh, in the far future. But, I think neuroscience, neuroeconomics
has an ambition to merge together various fields to build a unified
theory of our behavior. So, neuroeconomics is a highly [INAUDIBLE]
field, and I think it makes it extremely exciting and
interesting. For students. I would strongly recommend you to, learn
your economics more, and I like, the provocative nature
of this field. It reminds me model art when, very standard objects, combine in a
n unusual
way. Yeah, and gives us new perspectives, new insights, and the same way neuroec
onomics
combines psychology, economics, neuroscience, biology, genetics
to create completely new views of the nature of our decision
making. So if you will be interested in more details about the society for
neuroeconomics. You can actually go to the website for the
Society for NeuroEconomics. So finally important links are located
there. And for example handbooks, recent
publications I mentioned on this website. I strongly recommend you to read books
created by Paul Glimcher. He's the godfather of neuroeconomics and I
say he published fantastic books, introductory
books to neuroeconomics. And also I recommend you to read this bible of neuroeco
nomics, this book,
Neuroeconomics,. That is written by the leading
neuroscientist in the field. It can be quite difficult to read. So some chapter,
to be honest, are quite
complicated. But if you would need a recent review of the state of heart researc
h in
neuroeconomics. You can find it in this book. So I think we will start now our v
ery interesting journey into Neuroeconomics,
into very provocative interesting field. Trying to combine various sciences to
build a general theory of decision making. [SOUND] [MUSIC]