A mathematical formula can evaluate how you feel about experiences using your state of mind and brain activity.
Individuals can have a hard time to accurately examine how they feel about something, especially something they feel social pressure to delight in, like waking up early for a yoga class. How they really feel can be obtained from their mood and their brain activity in reward areas, according to brand-new research study published in JNeurosci.
Chew, Blain et al. determined individuals mood with duplicated questions and their brain activity with fMRI as they earned 2 types of benefits. Many people felt better after making more points or effectively completing the video game, but the contribution of either reward to joy differed from person to person. People whose joy was more swayed by intrinsic rewards had more activity in their ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a reward location, during intrinsic benefits compared to extrinsic benefits, and vice versa.
Chew, Blain et al. determined individuals mood with duplicated questions and their brain activity with fMRI as they earned two types of benefits. Individuals picked a box to earn points tied to how much money they would make at the end of the job– an extrinsic benefit. Then they played a game where they browsed a cursor through on-screen barriers. They did not earn anything for playing the game beyond their own satisfaction with doing well– an intrinsic benefit. The individuals answered concerns about how they felt throughout the research study.
Activity in vmPFC reveals modulation by both reward magnitude and knowledgeable efficiency. Credit: Chew, Blain et al., JNeurosci 2021
The research group established a mathematical equation to identify how much intrinsic and extrinsic rewards added to the individuals mood in a specific moment. The majority of people felt happier after earning more points or successfully completing the video game, but the contribution of either reward to joy differed from individual to individual. Individuals whose happiness was more swayed by intrinsic rewards had more activity in their ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a benefit location, during intrinsic rewards compared to extrinsic rewards, and vice versa. These results provide a potential opportunity to evaluate preferences without straight-out asking.
Referral: “A neurocomputational model for intrinsic benefit” by Benjamin Chew, Bastien Blain, Raymond J Dolan and Robb B Rutledge, 20 September 2021, JNeurosci.DOI: 10.1523/ JNEUROSCI.0858-20.2021.
By Society for Neuroscience
September 21, 2021
