Steph Gagnon

Minor point, but it was unclear how exactly Deaton & Muellbauers (1980) account
differed from Prelec & Loewensteins (1998) hedonic competition account.

Just to clarify the findings from Knutson et al. (2003), mPFC shows increased activity
for unexpected rewards, whereas NAcc shows increased activity during the anticipatory
period leading up to an expected reward? Or is mPFC active for other/any prediction
errors (e.g., expected loss, but nothing happens (net gain); expected loss but get gain
(net greater gain); expected gain, get loss (net loss); expected gain but nothing happens
(net loss)). If mPFC is selective for reward prediction errors (i.e., unexpected rewards),
is the increased mPFC that was responsive to price differential related to an unexpected
reward with a price lower than the one the participant was willing to pay?

What would have happened if the price had been displayed before the object was
presented? Why was the product preference calculated by collapsing across the
Product and Price periods instead of just the product period (or from product onset)?
Wouldnt you expect to see some type of decrease in NAcc if it codes for some type of
reward, if, according to the hedonic account, that the price should reflect some pain or
decrease in reward?

For the products where peoples preference changed, it would be interesting to see
what the activation looked like during the initial choice (e.g., perhaps increased ACC, or
even just longer RT), and then during the second presentation where they switched
their choice. Its also interesting that there was an asymmetry in choice consistency,
such that people tended to reverse decisions to purchase the product more than
decisions to keep the money (i.e., not purchase the product). Would the results be
different if people had been exposed to images of all the objects before being asked to
make price decisions?

Would you expect to see OFC predicting purchasing if the slice prescription had been
optimized for reducing signal loss in that region?