Kisito
Jedi Council Member
http://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2015/08/04/trop-de-confiance-en-soi-nuit-a-notre-jugement_4710773_1650684.html
Everyone complains of his memory and no one complains about his judgment, "pointed the Duke of La Rochefoucauld (Reflections or sentences and moral maxims, 1665). The formula has not weakened, but neuroscience illuminate a paradoxical day. They show the importance of a region of the brain that processes our judgments and a shape memory.
Two extra research reveals that our judgments are modular or manipulated. They are influenced by the context in which we find ourselves: for example, if we listen to unpleasant or pleasant music. This is what reveals the first study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience on February 4. But our judgments also depend on the degree of trust we place in them, we learned the second study, published July 20 in Nature Neuroscience. So what advertisers know so well is use laboratory confirmation.
"We also found that the same brain region code value judgments and our confidence that we wear them. It is a result that surprised us, "admits Jean Daunizeau, Inserm researcher at the Brain Institute and spinal cord (ICM, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris), co-author of this publication.
Read also: De misleading maps of the brain?
Confident, strong opinions
This region with many gifts, it is our ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which sits above and between the eyes. "For ten years, we know that this region plays a central role in the values we ascribe to objects. Its activity increases when something pleases us, Mathias falls Pessiglione, CIM, lead author of this work. In 2009, we showed that code automatically the value of objects we watch, even if we are busy with another task. "This area assigns a" price "to any type of" object ": face, music, food, vacation plans ... Because our propensity to evaluate is relentless!
The researchers asked a few dozen volunteers to assess, on a scale of - 10 to + 10, their attraction to a visual stimulus (photos of faces, houses or tables). They also had to estimate their degree of confidence in their judgment. Result: a beautiful U-shaped curve between our value judgments to our confidence. When we do not trust our choices, our notes are averages. But when we trust our judgments are more extreme. Clearly, the more you are sure of yourself, the more we allow strong opinions.
In parallel, the Paris team has shown by MRI, the activity of the prefrontal cortex ventromedial is proportional to the value attributed to objects, but also confidence. "When we feel something, we try to be as specific as possible: this is why this area of the brain also measures our certainty. It treats the trust as a value in itself that we must maximize "says Jean Daunizeau.
This would explain the common coding of our sometimes irrational behavior. "Just as we are subject to perceptual illusions we might be victims of illusions of judgment, says Raphaël Gaillard, professor of psychiatry at the University Paris-Descartes and Sainte-Anne. Confidence may "contaminate" the determination of values, or vice versa. For example, someone who would be artificially high confidence may overestimate the value of what is presented to him. "
Psychiatric diseases
"Our findings offer an explanation to the" optimism bias ". Thus, 95% of people consider themselves better drivers than average, "laughs Mathias Pessiglione. Some psychiatric diseases could also change the trust, so the values. "The manic state is marked by an expansion of the trust, which could hypertrophy values. Thus, some manic patients put themselves at risk by unreasonable purchases, "says Raphaël Gaillard. As for the beginnings of schizophrenia, they seem marked by a disturbance of the ability to use the confidence to weight the choice. This is suggested by a study published June 9 in Molecular Psychiatry by Fabien Vinckier and Raphaël Gaillard. These results open perspectives neuroeconomy to understand the brain mechanisms that underlie our choices. "It will probably take into account the confidence with which we make our judgments," notes Jean Daunizeau.
"The extraordinary elegance" of this study was welcomed by Professor Bruno Falissard, psychiatrist and director of the Mental Health Unit Public Health and the National Institute for Health and Medical Research. But "it delivers a statistical law that does not allow to predict the behavior of a person at a given time. The biological functioning of the brain does not undermine the freedom or human determinism, "he tempers.
It is the same in the control of fear: cerebral control is right between our eyes! Because the memory of fear is also addressed in the same region of the brain. This is shown by an American study published July 31 in Science Advances by the team of Olena Bukalo, National Institutes of Health US (NIH, Bethesda). The authors reveal the importance of a critical brain circuit to "extinguish" the memory of fear in mice. By an optogenetic technique, they selectively activated prefrontal cortex neurons that project into the amygdala. Results: mice subjected to repeated trauma (a sound associated with an electric shock, for example) easily forget their anxiety. "This work opens beautiful view to see if this circuit is also affected in post-traumatic stress disorder in humans, in the hope of developing more specific treatments," said Alexander Fleischmann, Inserm researcher at the College France paris).
Florence Rosier
Journalist for Le Monde
Everyone complains of his memory and no one complains about his judgment, "pointed the Duke of La Rochefoucauld (Reflections or sentences and moral maxims, 1665). The formula has not weakened, but neuroscience illuminate a paradoxical day. They show the importance of a region of the brain that processes our judgments and a shape memory.
Two extra research reveals that our judgments are modular or manipulated. They are influenced by the context in which we find ourselves: for example, if we listen to unpleasant or pleasant music. This is what reveals the first study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience on February 4. But our judgments also depend on the degree of trust we place in them, we learned the second study, published July 20 in Nature Neuroscience. So what advertisers know so well is use laboratory confirmation.
"We also found that the same brain region code value judgments and our confidence that we wear them. It is a result that surprised us, "admits Jean Daunizeau, Inserm researcher at the Brain Institute and spinal cord (ICM, Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris), co-author of this publication.
Read also: De misleading maps of the brain?
Confident, strong opinions
This region with many gifts, it is our ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which sits above and between the eyes. "For ten years, we know that this region plays a central role in the values we ascribe to objects. Its activity increases when something pleases us, Mathias falls Pessiglione, CIM, lead author of this work. In 2009, we showed that code automatically the value of objects we watch, even if we are busy with another task. "This area assigns a" price "to any type of" object ": face, music, food, vacation plans ... Because our propensity to evaluate is relentless!
The researchers asked a few dozen volunteers to assess, on a scale of - 10 to + 10, their attraction to a visual stimulus (photos of faces, houses or tables). They also had to estimate their degree of confidence in their judgment. Result: a beautiful U-shaped curve between our value judgments to our confidence. When we do not trust our choices, our notes are averages. But when we trust our judgments are more extreme. Clearly, the more you are sure of yourself, the more we allow strong opinions.
In parallel, the Paris team has shown by MRI, the activity of the prefrontal cortex ventromedial is proportional to the value attributed to objects, but also confidence. "When we feel something, we try to be as specific as possible: this is why this area of the brain also measures our certainty. It treats the trust as a value in itself that we must maximize "says Jean Daunizeau.
This would explain the common coding of our sometimes irrational behavior. "Just as we are subject to perceptual illusions we might be victims of illusions of judgment, says Raphaël Gaillard, professor of psychiatry at the University Paris-Descartes and Sainte-Anne. Confidence may "contaminate" the determination of values, or vice versa. For example, someone who would be artificially high confidence may overestimate the value of what is presented to him. "
Psychiatric diseases
"Our findings offer an explanation to the" optimism bias ". Thus, 95% of people consider themselves better drivers than average, "laughs Mathias Pessiglione. Some psychiatric diseases could also change the trust, so the values. "The manic state is marked by an expansion of the trust, which could hypertrophy values. Thus, some manic patients put themselves at risk by unreasonable purchases, "says Raphaël Gaillard. As for the beginnings of schizophrenia, they seem marked by a disturbance of the ability to use the confidence to weight the choice. This is suggested by a study published June 9 in Molecular Psychiatry by Fabien Vinckier and Raphaël Gaillard. These results open perspectives neuroeconomy to understand the brain mechanisms that underlie our choices. "It will probably take into account the confidence with which we make our judgments," notes Jean Daunizeau.
"The extraordinary elegance" of this study was welcomed by Professor Bruno Falissard, psychiatrist and director of the Mental Health Unit Public Health and the National Institute for Health and Medical Research. But "it delivers a statistical law that does not allow to predict the behavior of a person at a given time. The biological functioning of the brain does not undermine the freedom or human determinism, "he tempers.
It is the same in the control of fear: cerebral control is right between our eyes! Because the memory of fear is also addressed in the same region of the brain. This is shown by an American study published July 31 in Science Advances by the team of Olena Bukalo, National Institutes of Health US (NIH, Bethesda). The authors reveal the importance of a critical brain circuit to "extinguish" the memory of fear in mice. By an optogenetic technique, they selectively activated prefrontal cortex neurons that project into the amygdala. Results: mice subjected to repeated trauma (a sound associated with an electric shock, for example) easily forget their anxiety. "This work opens beautiful view to see if this circuit is also affected in post-traumatic stress disorder in humans, in the hope of developing more specific treatments," said Alexander Fleischmann, Inserm researcher at the College France paris).
Florence Rosier
Journalist for Le Monde