IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmic/v6y2014i2p1-36.html

Neural Activity Reveals Preferences without Choices

Author

Listed:
  • Alec Smith
  • B. Douglas Bernheim
  • Colin F. Camerer
  • Antonio Rangel

Abstract

We investigate the feasibility of inferring the choices people would make (if given the opportunity) based on their neural responses to the pertinent prospects when they are not engaged in actual decision making. The ability to make such inferences is of potential value when choice data are unavailable, or limited in ways that render standard methods of estimating choice mappings problematic. We formulate prediction models relating choices to "nonchoice" neural responses, and use them to predict out-of-sample choices for new items and for new groups of individuals. The predictions are sufficiently accurate to establish the feasibility of our approach.

Suggested Citation

  • Alec Smith & B. Douglas Bernheim & Colin F. Camerer & Antonio Rangel, 2014. "Neural Activity Reveals Preferences without Choices," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 1-36, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:6:y:2014:i:2:p:1-36
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mic.6.2.1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/mic.6.2.1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/app/0602/2012-0113_app.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/data/0602/2012-0113_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/mic/ds/0602/2012-0113_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan A. Parker & Nicholas S. Souleles, 2017. "Reported Effects vs. Revealed-Preference Estimates: Evidence from the propensity to spend tax rebates," NBER Working Papers 23920, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Clithero, John A., 2018. "Improving out-of-sample predictions using response times and a model of the decision process," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 344-375.
    3. Fadong Chen & Urs Fischbacher, 2016. "Response time and click position: cheap indicators of preferences," Journal of the Economic Science Association, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 2(2), pages 109-126, November.
    4. Colin F. Camerer & Gideon Nave & Alec Smith, 2019. "Dynamic Unstructured Bargaining with Private Information: Theory, Experiment, and Outcome Prediction via Machine Learning," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(4), pages 1867-1890, April.
    5. Motoki, Kosuke & Suzuki, Shinsuke & Kawashima, Ryuta & Sugiura, Motoaki, 2020. "A Combination of Self-Reported Data and Social-Related Neural Measures Forecasts Viral Marketing Success on Social Media," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 99-117.
    6. George Judge, 2015. "Entropy Maximization as a Basis for Information Recovery in Dynamic Economic Behavioral Systems," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-10, February.
    7. Xiaoxue Gao & Eshin Jolly & Hongbo Yu & Huiying Liu & Xiaolin Zhou & Luke J. Chang, 2024. "The psychological, computational, and neural foundations of indebtedness," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, December.
    8. Ryan Webb & Paul W. Glimcher & Kenway Louie, 2021. "The Normalization of Consumer Valuations: Context-Dependent Preferences from Neurobiological Constraints," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 93-125, January.
    9. Daniel Serra, 2019. "La neuroéconomie en question : débats et controverses," Working Papers halshs-02160911, HAL.
    10. Dimitris Christelis & Dimitris Georgarakos & Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri & Maarten van Rooij, 2019. "Asymmetric Consumption Effects of Transitory Income Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2322-2341.
    11. Smith, Trenton G., 2023. "Endocrine state is the physical manifestation of subjective beliefs," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    12. Glimcher, Paul W. & Tymula, Agnieszka A., 2023. "Expected subjective value theory (ESVT): A representation of decision under risk and certainty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 110-128.
    13. Sophie Bavard & Erik Stuchlý & Arkady Konovalov & Sebastian Gluth, 2024. "Humans can infer social preferences from decision speed alone," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 22(6), pages 1-27, June.
    14. Lusk, Jayson L. & Crespi, John M. & McFadden, Brandon R. & Cherry, J. Bradley C. & Martin, Laura & Bruce, Amanda, 2016. "Neural antecedents of a random utility model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 93-103.
    15. Ryan H Murphy, 2023. "The clear expectation of cultural betterment in the face of rising living standards," Rationality and Society, , vol. 35(3), pages 338-365, August.
    16. Colby, Bonnie, 2023. "Teaching Water Resource Economics for Policy Analysis," Applied Economics Teaching Resources (AETR), Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 5(3), September.
    17. Halko, Marja-Liisa & Lappalainen, Olli & Sääksvuori, Lauri, 2021. "Do non-choice data reveal economic preferences? Evidence from biometric data and compensation-scheme choice," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 87-104.
    18. Webb, Ryan & Mehta, Nitin & Levy, Ifat, 2021. "Assessing consumer demand with noisy neural measurements," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 222(1), pages 89-106.
    19. Krajbich, Ian & Camerer, Colin & Rangel, Antonio, 2017. "Exploring the scope of neurometrically informed mechanism design," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 49-62.
    20. John A. Clithero & Jae Joon Lee & Joshua Tasoff, 2019. "Supervised Machine Learning for Eliciting Individual Demand," Papers 1904.13329, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    21. Daniel Serra, 2021. "Decision-making: from neuroscience to neuroeconomics—an overview," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 91(1), pages 1-80, July.
    22. Clithero, John A., 2018. "Response times in economics: Looking through the lens of sequential sampling models," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 61-86.
    23. Guo, Julie & Tymula, Agnieszka, 2021. "Waterfall illusion in risky choice – exposure to outcome-irrelevant gambles affects subsequent valuation of risky gambles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    24. Ryan Webb, 2019. "The (Neural) Dynamics of Stochastic Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 230-255, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D87 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Neuroeconomics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmic:v:6:y:2014:i:2:p:1-36. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.