Neuroforecasting reveals how individual choice can generalize to aggregate choice

Progress in neuroimaging research has allowed researchers not only to predict diverse individual choices, but also to forecast some of those choices out-of-sample at the aggregate scale (e.g., on the internet). Surprisingly, sampled brain activity sometimes supports better forecasts than sampled behavior. For instance, neuroforecasting research on crowdfunding and video viewing suggests that sampled Nucleus Accumbens (NAcc) responses, but not sampled behavior, forecasts the popularity of choice options on the internet. Further analyses have begun to clarify how brain responses of limited samples reveal generalizable components of choice capable of improving market forecasts.

Speaker: Brian Knutson, Stanford University

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