Describe Empathy for pain experiments by t. Singer et al. (2004)

T. Singer et al. (2004), showed that the same structures (anterior insula and cinglulate cortex) that are involved in the

experience and perception of disgust, also mediate empathy for pain.

It is likely that empathy for pain is mediated by a “mirror” mechanism similar to that postulated for disgust. Активация этой области происходит как во время переживания боли, так и во время наблюдения за другими людьми, испытывающими боль.

• Singer et al. (2004) measured empathic brain responses elicited by the knowledge that your partner suffered pain.

• Painful stimulation was applied either to a female own or to her partner’s right hand who was sitting next to her in the MRI room.

• Parts of the so-called ‘pain matrix’, predominantly bilateral anterior insula (AI) and the anterior cingulate cortex, were activated when subjects experienced pain themselves as well as when they saw a signal indicating that a loved one had experienced pain.

Pain of our enemy?

• The confederates played fair or unfair strategies in a Trust Game with the subjects.

• The confederates were always ‘second mover’ and could choose between a fair or an unfair response by

returning high or low amounts of money

• Subjects liked fair players and dislike unfair players.

Также результаты показали, что люди, больше сочувствовали честным игрокам, чем нечестным. Если готовить о мужчинах, то у них вообще было отрицательное значение для активации инсулы в случае с нечестными игроками. У мужчин также отмечена сильная активация NA в случае с нечестными игроками. Можно сказать, что мужчины испытывали удовольствие от их страданий и это также является индикатором желания отомстить.

Summary

• Both sexes exhibited empathy-related activation in pain-related brain areas (insular and anterior cingulate cortices) towards fair players.

• However, these empathy-related responses were significantly reduced in males when observing an unfair person receiving pain.

• This effect was accompanied by increased activation in reward-related areas (N.Acc), correlated with an expressed desire for

revenge.

• Men (at least) empathize with fair opponents while favouring the physical punishment of unfair opponents.

Почему люди испытывают удовольствие от мучений нечестных игроков? Потому что наказание нечестных людей важно для группы, которая хочет достичь кооперации. Если хотя бы один член группы начнет действовать в своих интересах, обманывая других, все члены группы начнут так действовать, т.к. этот выбор наиболее рационален. Это разрушит кооперацию, и группа не сможет действовать совместно.

Explain how to trade with capuchins monkeys. Do capuchins obey price theory, do they maximize expected value? (illustrate)

Trading with capuchins

• Capuchin monkeys (as well as other primates) can be quickly trained to trade tokens for small food rewards.

• Capuchins make choices between multiple different traders, each of whom delivers different kinds or amounts of goods when presented with a single token.

• An economic market – in which they could establish preferences across different bundles of goods.

• Thus, we introduce price and wealth changes and examine how such changes affected capuchins ’purchasing behavior.

Do capuchins obey price theory as

humans do?

• Two goods that the capuchins liked equally – pieces of jello and apple slices .

• Next: dropped the price of one of the two goods by half.

• The majority of capuchins actors shift their consumption to the cheaper good, like humans, obey the tenets of price theory.

• Monkey consumers reliably preferred a gain condition.

• Like humans, capuchins appear to take into account reference points – in this case, what they

initially are offered.

• Thus, capuchins appear to share fundamental biases that humans display: framing

effects, with different descriptions of the same problem leading them to make different choices.

WHAT COMPARATIVE STUDIES MEAN FOR TRADITIONAL ECONOMICS AND NEUROECONOMICS

• Capuchins appear to obey the standard price theory, just like humans.

• Capuchins also exhibit the same systematic biases as humans – they evaluate gambles in terms of arbitrary reference points, and pay more attention to losses than to gains.

• Monkeys appear to show other market anomalies, like the endowment effect.

• Comparative studies suggest that biases are evolutionary based and emerge in the absence of experience.