Knutson, Loewenstein and others, in one of the first studies that used fMRi (functional magnetic resonance) to examine the consumer's real behavior, "shook the board a bit" of what had been done in Neuromarketing - or in terms economic, in the study of micro-demand functions and analyzed by brain images people at a time of purchase in concrete form.
Twenty-six adults participated in the same, each with $ 20 to spend on certain products, which then would be sent home in case of purchase. And if they chose not to make any purchase, they could keep the money. The products and their prices appeared on a computer screen that participants could see while their brains were being scanned by magnetic resonance.
The researchers found that, as the participants were observing the attributes of each product, a subcortical brain region called nucleus accumbens was activated - this region is usually associated with the anticipation of pleasure or something pleasant, which like-. However, when people were warning about the excessive prices of certain products, two additional things happened: the brain region known as insula (eminently emotional area) was activated and the pre-frontal middle cortex (eminently rational area) was deactivated. We have already mentioned that the insula is a brain area that is activated in situations that the person observes as unfair, or unpleasant; while the pre-frontal cortex is related to the balance of gains and losses, that is, the economic calculation, the eminently rational.
In the following figure, you can see the images obtained from the brain scan to consumers.
In the upper part of the figure, activation of the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), the middle prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and the insula can be observed. In the middle figure, the geographical location of each of them is observed and in the lower graphs, the changes in the level of activation over time are observed, measured in seconds (product display, price display, decision period) and your confidence intervals. The scale on the right indicates the values of the "t" statistic for activation (top) and deactivation (middle part).
In this way, by studying which brain regions were activated at the time each person decided to buy, the researchers were able to successfully predict whether the participants would decide to buy or not. Activations of the regions associated with the preference for the product (core accumbens) and weighting gains and losses (average pre-frontal cortex) indicated that a person would decide to buy a product. On the contrary, when the region associated with excessive prices (insula) was activated, the participants would choose not to buy said product.
That is to say, a significant aspect of the study is that the brain scan via neuroimaging predicts consumer behavior almost as well as the intentions of the consumers before the experiment, showing that:
· Neuro market studies aim to be better than the usual market studies, since they are less biased, although they are more expensive;
· From the econometric point of view, introducing neuro variables allows enriching the demand functions estimated in the traditional way.
Author: Sebastián Laza is an argentine economist, graduated from the National University of Cuyo (Mendoza, Argentina), specialized in the interrelation between Neuroscience and Economics, with postgraduate courses on the subject at the National University of La Plata (Buenos Aires, Argentina), National Research University, Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia) and Duke University (USA). Book: https://www.amazon.com/NEUROECONOMICS-DISRUPTIVE-PATH-Sebastian-Laza-ebook/dp/B07GJW1HCL
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