Cognitive Neuroscience

Emerging evidence of how brain structures and neurological mechanisms influence and shape decision making has led researchers in economics and marketing to look deeper into the cognitive processes that underlie a wide range of behavioural phenomena. Brain imaging techniques such as EEG or fMRI has for instance allowed researchers to provide neurobiological evidence that supports the understanding that people make decisions based on ‘hunches’ or ‘gut feelings’, by identifying the neural circuitries that are engaged in decision making under uncertainty. That intuitive judgment for instance plays an important role in expert decision making where one would least expect it, namely in finance, has been demonstrated in a large-scale study of professional traders at four major investment banks. Or research in psychophysiology for example suggests that emotional stimuli can trigger physiological responses such as increased facial muscle activity or eye movement.