Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain

Edited by Paul Glimcher & Ernst Fehr
Published by Academic Press (2014)

In the years since it first published, Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain has become the standard reference and textbook in the burgeoning field of neuroeconomics. The second edition, a nearly complete revision of this landmark book, will set a new standard. This new edition features five sections designed to serve as both classroom-friendly introductions to each of the major subareas in neuroeconomics, and as advanced synopses of all that has been accomplished in the last two decades in this rapidly expanding academic discipline. The first of these sections provides useful introductions to the disciplines of microeconomics, the psychology of judgment and decision, computational neuroscience, and anthropology for scholars and students seeking interdisciplinary breadth. The second section provides an overview of how human and animal preferences are represented in the mammalian nervous systems. Chapters on risk, time preferences, social preferences, emotion, pharmacology, and common neural currencies—each written by leading experts—lay out the foundations of neuroeconomic thought. The third section contains both overview and in-depth chapters on the fundamentals of reinforcement learning, value learning, and value representation. The fourth section, “The Neural Mechanisms for Choice,” integrates what is known about the decision-making architecture into state-of-the-art models of how we make choices. The final section embeds these mechanisms in a larger social context, showing how these mechanisms function during social decision-making in both humans and animals. The book provides a historically rich exposition in each of its chapters and emphasizes both the accomplishments and the controversies in the field. A clear explanatory style and a single expository voice characterize all chapters, making core issues in economics, psychology, and neuroscience accessible to scholars from all disciplines. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in neuroeconomics in particular or decision making in general.

Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis

Written by Paul Glimcher
Published by Oxford University Press (2010)

In this book, Paul Glimcher argues that a meaningful interdisciplinary synthesis of the study of human and animal choice is not only desirable, but also well underway, and so it is time to formally develop a foundational approach for the field. He does so by laying the philosophical and empirical groundwork and integrating the theory of choice and valuation with the relevant physical constraints and mechanisms. While there has been an intense debate about the value and prospects of neuroeconomics, Glimcher argues that existing data from neuroeconomics' three parent fields, neuroscience, psychology and economics, already specify the basic features of the primate choice mechanism at all three levels of analysis. His central argument is that combining these three disciplines gives us enough insight to define many of the fundamental features of decision making that have previously eluded scholars working within each individual field. With this in mind, Glimcher provides a comprehensive overview of the neuroscience, psychology, and economics of choice behavior, which will help readers from many disciplines to grasp the rich interconnections between these fields and see how their data and theory can interact to produce new insights, constraints, and questions. The book is divided into four main sections that address key barriers to interdisciplinary cohesion. The first section defines the central philosophical issues that neuroeconomics must engage. The second section describes what is known about the primate choice mechanism-the physical structures in our brains that actively select among the options available to the chooser. The third section describes the neural circuits for valuation-the physical mechanisms by which we learn, store, and represent the values of the many options from which we choose. The book concludes with a description of a new model for human choice behavior that harvests constraints from each of neuroeconomics' parent disciplines and encapsulates the key insights from current research, as well as a review of the major accomplishments and opportunities that await the new field of neuroeconomics.

Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain

Edited by Paul W. Glimcher, Colin F. Camerer, Ernst Fehr, and Russell A. Poldrack
Published by Academic Press (2008)

This edited volume has just been released (September 2008) from Academic Press in association with the Society for Neuroeconomics. The book represents the first comprehensive survey of this growing field and should serve as both a permanent reference work and a textbook appropriate for use at the graduate level. The volume begins with a brief history of the field written by the editors and then presents 33 chapters divided into 5 major sections. These five sections are: Neoclassical economic approaches to the brain, Behavioral economics and the brain, Social decision-making neuroeconomics and emotion, Understanding valuation - learning values, and the neural mechanisms of choice. Each section begins with an overview chapter authored by a major scholar and the book concludes with a similarly authored conclusion. The Nobel laureate Vernon Smith provides the first of these overviews followed by overviews from Douglas Bernheim, Antonio Damasio, Wolfram Schultz and Randy Gallistel with a conclusion by Nobel lauriate Daniel Kahneman. The book provides a historically rich exposition in each of its chapters and places a strong emphasis on describing both the accomplishments and controversies in the field. A clear explanatory style characterizes all chapters which seek to make core issues in economics, psychology and neuroscience accessible scholars from all disciples. This volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in Neuroeconomics in particular or Decision-Making in general.

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Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain: The Science of Neuroeconomics

Written by Paul Glimcher
Published by MIT Press (2004)

In this provocative book, Paul Glimcher argues that economic theory may provide an alternative to the classical Cartesian model of the brain and behavior. RenÈ Descartes (1596-1650) believed that all behaviors could be divided into two categories, the simple and the complex. Simple behaviors were those in which a given sensory event gave rise deterministically to an appropriate motor response. Complex behaviors were those in which the relationship between stimulus and response was unpredictable. These behaviors were the product of a process that Descartes called the soul, but that a modern scientist might call cognition or volition. Glimcher argues that Cartesian dualism operates from the false premise that the reflex is able to describe behavior in the real world that animals inhabit. A mathematically rich cognitive theory, he claims, could solve the most difficult problems that any environment could present, eliminating the need for dualism by eliminating the need for a reflex theory. Such a mathematically rigorous description of the neural processes that connect sensation and action, he explains, will have its roots in microeconomic theory. Economic theory allows physiologists to define both the optimal course of action that an animal might select and a mathematical route by which that optimal solution can be derived. Glimcher outlines what an economics-based cognitive model might look like and how one would begin to test it empirically. Along the way, he presents a fascinating history of neuroscience. He also discusses related questions about determinism, free will, and the stochastic nature of complex behavior.

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