Brian Knutson Quotations

Brain imaging gives us the hope of opening up the black box.

Activation in this region seems to be related to thinking something good is going to happen and getting excited about it.

Anticipation is totally underestimated. Why do slot machines have arms? You could just have a button but the arm heightens the anticipation.

That's how we figured out if they were behaving rationally or not. Did they pick according to all the information they had previously?

That seems to push people in the direction of avoiding risk if activated too much.

These areas of the brain are fairly deep and not associated with math and taxes. They're more associated with emotions or how people feel before they're about to do something. Anticipatory emotions may have some role in decision-making and even financial decision-making.