Research Hit: Why Your Brain Will Pay to Resolve Uncertainty

Ancient brain region involved in willingness to pay to resolve uncertainty

I presume it is the person paying not the brain!

Well, yes, but the decision to pay, cash for example, is made by the brain.

Ok, so what to you mean to “resolve uncertainty”?

Ethan Bromberg-Martin and colleagues at Washington State University investigated decision making processes and discovered some interesting mechanisms.

But the concept of resolving uncertainty is getting information that gives an answer but will have no fundamental impact on the outcome. For example, if you take a test, you may want to find out the results immediately even though it won’t make any difference to the test score - that is already done.

OK, but obviously we want to know the answer to things like tests, don’t we?

Yes, precisely. But this underlines what is a general rule for human beings, and also monkeys who were also researched showing a shared underlying mechanism!

So what is happening in the brain then?