A new research proposes that scans of the brain can help neuroscientists in predicting what will be one's likely behaviour in future.
Being the first persuasion study in neuroscience that can predict behavior change scientifically, this is a breakthrough in the medical world, feel scientists.
A team of researchers headed by Emily Falk and Matthew Lieberman from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), which initiated the neuroscience study, has found a method to interpret images of the brain to predict the actual behavior that a person may resort to in the future.
“We are trying to figure out whether there is hidden wisdom that the brain contains,” reported Emily Falk.
Mathew Lieberman, a professor of psychology added, “There is a very long history within psychology of people not being very good judges of what they will actually do in a future situation. Many people ‘decide’ to do things, but then don’t do them.”
Details of the study
For the present study, the team of researchers recruited 20 participants, including 10 males and 10 females, who mostly belonged to the Institute.
The group was confined to people who did not apply sunscreen on a daily basis. Study subjects were shown and made to hear certain public service announcements pertaining to use of sunscreens.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) was used to scan the brains of the participants at UCLA's Ahmanson - Lovelace Brain Mapping Centre, by the researchers.
The scientists also questioned all the subjects about how they intended to use sunscreen in the coming week and what they felt about sunscreens. After a week, a follow-up was done on how many days during the week the subjects used sunscreen.
Brain's medial prefrontal cortex, associated with self-reflection, was focused on to arrive at the conclusions of the study.
“We ran a simulation of the 180,000 combinations, developed our model on the first 10 subjects on each of the 180,000 simulations, and tested it on the second 10,” said Falk.
She added, “We saw a very reliable relationship, where for the vast majority of the 180,000 ways to divide the group up, this one region of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex, does a very good job of predicting sunscreen use in the second group.”
Study relevance
According to the researchers, the study could benefit many public health organizations and the advertising sector.
Lieberman said, “For advertisers, there may be a lot more that is knowable than is known, and this is a data-driven method for knowing more about how to create persuasive messages.”
“To really understand the relationship between the brain's responses to brands and persuasive materials and desirable outcomes, you actually have to measure the outcomes that are desirable and not just say what should work,” he concluded.
The study has been detailed in the June 23 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.
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