6 ms·

The Neuroscience Behind Bad Decisions

82 points by aethertap 10y ago

dominotw 10y ago
I am asking this out of my ignorance. I usually never read 'Psychology/Happiness/Depression/Mindfulness/Optimism/Anxiety/Loneliness/Child Psychology/Meditation' articles that have plagued HN recently. Is neuroscience legit science or is it unfair to lump it with psychology.
- kirykl 10y ago
  Are you implying psychology isn't 'legit' science ?
  - whenwillitstop 10y ago
    It has been shown that most 'studies' in pyschology are not reproducible. Science was built on reproducibility...
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      Not a quantitative hard science for sure, but that people try to understand psyche is not useless. The mind is complex and a lot of things that appeared as BS to me 4 years ago started to become a lot more plausible as I went through my own share of hurdles. I'm still eager for neuroscience, psychology and AI to overlap.
      - Practicality 10y ago
        This is pretty much going to be my thesis, but you will have to wait a few years :)
    - CarpetBench 10y ago
      Uh I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but "hard" science has a shitload of problems with reproducibility as well. It's actually a big problem with modern research in general.
      - agumonkey 10y ago
        I often dream of Brainiac Olympics. A month to challenge ideas, theories, find new ones, reproduce previous results in old or novel ways.
  - ccallebs 10y ago
    It's considered a "soft" science by many. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science From the wikipedia article: > [hard sciences have the characteristics of] testable predictions, performing controlled experiments, relying on quantifiable data and mathematical models, a high degree of accuracy and objectivity, higher levels of consensus, faster progression of the field, greater explanatory success, and generally applying a purer form of the scientific method.
    - bbctol 10y ago
      Traditionally, the division of sciences into "soft" and "hard" is very different from calling them real or fake science.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        Is it, though?
- cel1ne 10y ago
  I can't recommend this often enough: Check out "The emotional life of your brain" by Richard Davidson and Sharon Begley. It is applied neuro-science. A refined version of the "big five" character traits along with scientifically verified explanations where they originate in the brain and how to change them.
- icantdrive55 10y ago
  I'm not qualified to answer, but as a patient looking back; I feel duped by well meaning people. I don't know about neuroscience, but it seems when Psychologists/Psychiarty fails they fall back too frequently on, "Well, it's an art too?". I don't think I've met an older Psychiatrist who isn't secretly completely dissalusioned with their career. They won't admit it. I can just see it on their faces. It's ironic they know so much about denial, but they appear to really repress? I really hope these professions attract the best students/minds in the future, and brings in enough research money so that won't be an excuse. If you are in mental agony, you need to go through the dance--you might be the person they help. I'm not trying to be funny; you just need to go, and see if they can help. If all you get out of it is bills, bad side effects, and no results--leave. There's a part of me that wished I never seeked out their help, but will never know if I made the right decision. (My heart, and complete sympathy goes out to anyone hit with mental illness. I can offer this, with enough time you will feal better. Don't ruin your health by self-medicating. And I know, drugs like alcohol seem beneficial, but just don't overdo it. And again, give your brain/body time to heal. I'm an older guy who did get better. My life went down the tubes, but a lot of it was my fault--I guess? When I was in my twenties and blindsided by a malady, I held onto hope by a thin string. Every day became, just getting through it. My symptomology impoved with age. I will give good Psychologists/Psychiatrists this, they are the only professionals who seemingly truly understand what you are going through. To the rest of the world, the way you feel is a complete mystery, even family members, loved ones just don't quite get it. In the end, when you pull out of it, you might view the world a bit differently. There will be less black/white issues. I guarantee you will be a more understanding/sympathetic person. I sometimes think I became too liberal. To the point of being taken advantage of, but just don't know. I'm not the guy I used to be--for better, or worse.)
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    I think it might depend on the psychiatrist. Some of them treat it very much like a specialization for any medical doctor. You describe your symptoms, they give you the best treatment options available and you iterate from there. If therapy is the answer or part of it you go see a therapist. If new science comes out you adapt. I suspect someone practicing psychology is more likely to become disillusioned.
- bbctol 10y ago
  "Neuroscience" is an extremely broad field, but is defined by being grounded in direct observation of the brain. I work for a major neuroscience journal, and can assure you that research being done is both highly technical and extremely rigorous. That said, implying that psychology isn't legit science is troubling. It's certainly harder to do than other sciences, due to limitations in our technology for observation, but you can absolutely be rigorous and careful in your methodology, and come to well-supported conclusions.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  I recommend you browse through some of the lecture videos of this (free) Medical Neuroscience course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience It's probably way too big a course for someone only casually interested, but it's probably the best (free, but maybe overall) course available on the Internet for an introduction into the subject. Mostly because the professor is great. The TL;DW is that neuroscience is mostly about your "bio-electrical hardware". So nothing soft there at all. Do review it, this is such an interesting field. A good course for even more fundamental fundamentals is this (pretty big and still free) multimedia course from Harvard, which I'd say is aimed at high-school level students: https://www.mcb80x.org/ https://www.mcb80x.org/ What you have to understand on the medical side is that there is not much they can do for brain conditions. Surgery is mostly about stopping bleedings and "cutting away stuff". I took a little clinical neuroscience course and it was mostly "we don't know where this comes from", "here we can only treat side-effects", and actually nothing about actually healing anything at least for the various disorders covered in that course. "Brain issues" have the disadvantages that it's harder to do anything since a) it's much more risky (compared to trying and failing fixing a skin condition), b) it's much harder to get drugs there, c) it's harder to do surgery in the brain. So the science is pretty solid on the very low level, but on the scale of a full human brain there it gets way too complex. So the higher-level you go the more it's (interpretable) statistics, the lower you go the more it's (pretty solid) (cellular or molecular) biology, (bio-)chemistry and/or physics (electricity). They find new but essential things all the time even now, the field still feels "fresh" as in you have no difficulty finding things that need research and still are somewhat basic. The problem is that the really interesting stuff, the things that matter because it's needed for actually doing something about disease or malfunction, all are high-level, and knowing well what goes on in "a" (i.e. one) neuron (or even a group) does not help you that much in clinical practice. So on a clinical level neuroscience is as much "science" as most of medicine as a whole.
imgabe 10y ago
> If offered a Snickers, a Milky Way and an Almond Joy, participants would always choose the Snickers. But if they were offered 20 candy bars, including a Snickers, the choice became less clear. They would sometimes pick something other than the Snickers, even though it was still their favorite. Just because something is your favorite doesn't mean it's rational to always choose it every time. Hot wings are my favorite food, but I don't eat them three meals a day to the exclusion of everything else. If there's a selection of 20 candy bars, possibly including ones you haven't tried before, I don't think it's irrational to try a new one since that might become a favorite. Even if it's one you already know, maybe you're just in the mood for coconut instead of peanuts at the moment. This seems like a poor way to measure irrationality.
- dvanduzer 10y ago
  The goal of the experiment was not to measure irrationality. The goal was to measure neuronal activity involved in decision making, while fuzzing the decision making system with too many options.
  - Phemist 10y ago
    Not having read the article at all, so going purely on the title and GP's quote, the question seems to me to be whether bad decisions are always irrational and whether this was an experiment that successfully induced bad decisions (which, imo, was rightfully challenged by GP)
  - anexprogrammer 10y ago
    The article mentions irrationality numerous times. The experimenter appears to be attempting to frame all decision making as economic value choices. It even gets called Neuroeconomics. "What part of the brain calculates that the Snickers bar rates higher than the Milky Way?" Maybe I'm just broken, but this is a long way from how I choose a choc bar, from 3 or 20. My choice will change depending on what I had recently. I don't have time to skim the actual paper, but I'm more with the GP that it seems a pretty poor experiment.
    - 10y ago
apineda 10y ago
I'd also like, "The Neuroscience behind the concept 'bad decision'"

82 points by aethertap 10y ago

I am asking this out of my ignorance. I usually never read 'Psychology/Happiness/Depression/Mindfulness/Optimism/Anxiety/Loneliness/Child Psychology/Meditation' articles that have plagued HN recently. Is neuroscience legit science or is it unfair to lump it with psychology.

kirykl 10y ago
Are you implying psychology isn't 'legit' science ?
- whenwillitstop 10y ago
  It has been shown that most 'studies' in pyschology are not reproducible. Science was built on reproducibility...
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Not a quantitative hard science for sure, but that people try to understand psyche is not useless. The mind is complex and a lot of things that appeared as BS to me 4 years ago started to become a lot more plausible as I went through my own share of hurdles. I'm still eager for neuroscience, psychology and AI to overlap.
    - Practicality 10y ago
      This is pretty much going to be my thesis, but you will have to wait a few years :)
  - CarpetBench 10y ago
    Uh I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but "hard" science has a shitload of problems with reproducibility as well. It's actually a big problem with modern research in general.
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      I often dream of Brainiac Olympics. A month to challenge ideas, theories, find new ones, reproduce previous results in old or novel ways.
- ccallebs 10y ago
  It's considered a "soft" science by many. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_and_soft_science From the wikipedia article: > [hard sciences have the characteristics of] testable predictions, performing controlled experiments, relying on quantifiable data and mathematical models, a high degree of accuracy and objectivity, higher levels of consensus, faster progression of the field, greater explanatory success, and generally applying a purer form of the scientific method.
  - bbctol 10y ago
    Traditionally, the division of sciences into "soft" and "hard" is very different from calling them real or fake science.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      Is it, though?
cel1ne 10y ago
I can't recommend this often enough: Check out "The emotional life of your brain" by Richard Davidson and Sharon Begley. It is applied neuro-science. A refined version of the "big five" character traits along with scientifically verified explanations where they originate in the brain and how to change them.
icantdrive55 10y ago
I'm not qualified to answer, but as a patient looking back; I feel duped by well meaning people. I don't know about neuroscience, but it seems when Psychologists/Psychiarty fails they fall back too frequently on, "Well, it's an art too?". I don't think I've met an older Psychiatrist who isn't secretly completely dissalusioned with their career. They won't admit it. I can just see it on their faces. It's ironic they know so much about denial, but they appear to really repress? I really hope these professions attract the best students/minds in the future, and brings in enough research money so that won't be an excuse. If you are in mental agony, you need to go through the dance--you might be the person they help. I'm not trying to be funny; you just need to go, and see if they can help. If all you get out of it is bills, bad side effects, and no results--leave. There's a part of me that wished I never seeked out their help, but will never know if I made the right decision. (My heart, and complete sympathy goes out to anyone hit with mental illness. I can offer this, with enough time you will feal better. Don't ruin your health by self-medicating. And I know, drugs like alcohol seem beneficial, but just don't overdo it. And again, give your brain/body time to heal. I'm an older guy who did get better. My life went down the tubes, but a lot of it was my fault--I guess? When I was in my twenties and blindsided by a malady, I held onto hope by a thin string. Every day became, just getting through it. My symptomology impoved with age. I will give good Psychologists/Psychiatrists this, they are the only professionals who seemingly truly understand what you are going through. To the rest of the world, the way you feel is a complete mystery, even family members, loved ones just don't quite get it. In the end, when you pull out of it, you might view the world a bit differently. There will be less black/white issues. I guarantee you will be a more understanding/sympathetic person. I sometimes think I became too liberal. To the point of being taken advantage of, but just don't know. I'm not the guy I used to be--for better, or worse.)
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  I think it might depend on the psychiatrist. Some of them treat it very much like a specialization for any medical doctor. You describe your symptoms, they give you the best treatment options available and you iterate from there. If therapy is the answer or part of it you go see a therapist. If new science comes out you adapt. I suspect someone practicing psychology is more likely to become disillusioned.
bbctol 10y ago
"Neuroscience" is an extremely broad field, but is defined by being grounded in direct observation of the brain. I work for a major neuroscience journal, and can assure you that research being done is both highly technical and extremely rigorous. That said, implying that psychology isn't legit science is troubling. It's certainly harder to do than other sciences, due to limitations in our technology for observation, but you can absolutely be rigorous and careful in your methodology, and come to well-supported conclusions.
Noseshine 10y ago
I recommend you browse through some of the lecture videos of this (free) Medical Neuroscience course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience https://www.coursera.org/learn/medical-neuroscience It's probably way too big a course for someone only casually interested, but it's probably the best (free, but maybe overall) course available on the Internet for an introduction into the subject. Mostly because the professor is great. The TL;DW is that neuroscience is mostly about your "bio-electrical hardware". So nothing soft there at all. Do review it, this is such an interesting field. A good course for even more fundamental fundamentals is this (pretty big and still free) multimedia course from Harvard, which I'd say is aimed at high-school level students: https://www.mcb80x.org/ https://www.mcb80x.org/ What you have to understand on the medical side is that there is not much they can do for brain conditions. Surgery is mostly about stopping bleedings and "cutting away stuff". I took a little clinical neuroscience course and it was mostly "we don't know where this comes from", "here we can only treat side-effects", and actually nothing about actually healing anything at least for the various disorders covered in that course. "Brain issues" have the disadvantages that it's harder to do anything since a) it's much more risky (compared to trying and failing fixing a skin condition), b) it's much harder to get drugs there, c) it's harder to do surgery in the brain. So the science is pretty solid on the very low level, but on the scale of a full human brain there it gets way too complex. So the higher-level you go the more it's (interpretable) statistics, the lower you go the more it's (pretty solid) (cellular or molecular) biology, (bio-)chemistry and/or physics (electricity). They find new but essential things all the time even now, the field still feels "fresh" as in you have no difficulty finding things that need research and still are somewhat basic. The problem is that the really interesting stuff, the things that matter because it's needed for actually doing something about disease or malfunction, all are high-level, and knowing well what goes on in "a" (i.e. one) neuron (or even a group) does not help you that much in clinical practice. So on a clinical level neuroscience is as much "science" as most of medicine as a whole.

imgabe 10y ago

> If offered a Snickers, a Milky Way and an Almond Joy, participants would always choose the Snickers. But if they were offered 20 candy bars, including a Snickers, the choice became less clear. They would sometimes pick something other than the Snickers, even though it was still their favorite. Just because something is your favorite doesn't mean it's rational to always choose it every time. Hot wings are my favorite food, but I don't eat them three meals a day to the exclusion of everything else. If there's a selection of 20 candy bars, possibly including ones you haven't tried before, I don't think it's irrational to try a new one since that might become a favorite. Even if it's one you already know, maybe you're just in the mood for coconut instead of peanuts at the moment. This seems like a poor way to measure irrationality.

dvanduzer 10y ago
The goal of the experiment was not to measure irrationality. The goal was to measure neuronal activity involved in decision making, while fuzzing the decision making system with too many options.
- Phemist 10y ago
  Not having read the article at all, so going purely on the title and GP's quote, the question seems to me to be whether bad decisions are always irrational and whether this was an experiment that successfully induced bad decisions (which, imo, was rightfully challenged by GP)
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  The article mentions irrationality numerous times. The experimenter appears to be attempting to frame all decision making as economic value choices. It even gets called Neuroeconomics. "What part of the brain calculates that the Snickers bar rates higher than the Milky Way?" Maybe I'm just broken, but this is a long way from how I choose a choc bar, from 3 or 20. My choice will change depending on what I had recently. I don't have time to skim the actual paper, but I'm more with the GP that it seems a pretty poor experiment.
  - 10y ago

apineda 10y ago

I'd also like, "The Neuroscience behind the concept 'bad decision'"