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- [Colin] We have a saying 
in neuroscience sometimes:

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"Don't ask the person,
ask the brain,"

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because the brain activity
may be something

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that's less than fully conscious.

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♪ [music] ♪

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My research is about behavioral 
economics and neuroeconomics.

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And behavioral economics

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is using ideas from psychology
and other social sciences

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to make economics
a little bit more lifelike

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and fit human behavior.

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The neuroeconomics part 
is that we actually try to see

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what's happening in the brain

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when people are making 
economic decisions.

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Hypothetical bias is a term 
for when you ask somebody

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whether they're going to something,
but there's no actual consequences,

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like a lot of surveys:
"Are you going to vote?"

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"Will you buy 
this new product we have?"

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You tend to get a kind 
of upward "yes" bias.

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People are more likely to say,
"Yeah, I'd think I'd buy it"

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or "Oh yeah, I'm planning to vote."

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The hypothetical bias
can be pretty high,

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and it can be also retrospective.

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So if you ask people did they vote,

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70% say yes and really 
the answer was 45%.

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One application is 
in things like marketing.

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A lot of new products fail,
and one reason they fail

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is because when 
they test market it,

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a lot of people said, 
"Yes, I'd buy it,"

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who weren't going to buy it.

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One thing that people 
have been chasing

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in different fields in economics
and psychology is

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how could we measure the size 
of this bias and adjust for it.

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So that if 70% of the people say
they're going to buy a new product,

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we know that 
the real number is 45%.

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We did a couple of studies
using brain imaging to say

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is there a kind
of signature in the brain

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of when somebody says, 
"Yes, I would buy it,"

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but when they really have 
to choose, they say no.

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So we showed them pictures
of different goods,

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and the first part 
of the experiment, we asked them,

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"Would you pay $27 
for this backpack, yes or no?"

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That's the hypothetical part,
and then we kind of surprised them

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when they come out of the scanner,
and we say to them,

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"Oh, by the way, now we're going 
to actually have you decide

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to spend money 
so we're going to give you $50."

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If you want to buy
the backpack for $27,

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we're going to take it
out of your 50,

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so that now they have
to make real decisions,

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and then we study 
in the brain imaging,

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could we tell what areas 
were saying yes,

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but actually would later say no

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compared to the areas that said,
"Yes, I think I'll buy it,"

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and, yes, they really did buy it.

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And we found both
more activity in certain regions

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associated with valuation

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and then activity
in different regions,

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which were somewhat predictive

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of when a yes was going to turn
into, "Well, not really."

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In some other studies 
on hypothetical bias,

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we used eye tracking, 
which is a computerized way

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of seeing what you're looking at
for how long.

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It also measures pupil dilation.

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When you're aroused 
by something that you like

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or possibly you're scared,
the pupil dilates a little bit.

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So we used that method
and then another method

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using mouse movements.

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And so we found 
that the mouse tracking

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and the eye tracking
actually could give us an idea

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of when people would say, "Yes, 
I'm going to buy this product,"

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but then they really didn't
when they had skin in the game

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and had to buy it.

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The quicker a person moves a mouse
to a box to click on something,

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the more they like it.

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It's like a fast trajectory,
"I really like this."

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A slow meandering trajectory is, 
"Well, I don't know. I'm not sure."

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The motor activity in the mouse is
actually an index in economic value

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as well as some other things,
like indecision.

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We live in a kind of golden age
of social science

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in which we can measure things
in lots and lots of different ways.

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So one thing we've just begun

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that I think it's going 
to be really, really fun

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is in order to study habit
and a bunch of other things,

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we bought a smart vending machine,

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and a smart vending machine

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is basically a vending
machine in the back

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and a giant iPad in the front.

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So you could program the iPad
to show whatever you want.

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For example, if somebody buys
habitually and you raise the price

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by a few percent,
do they just ignore that

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because they're not 
even looking at the price?

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Eventually, we'd like also
to be able to use webcam or cameras

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to record so when I say
somebody is not looking at the price,

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I really mean they are
not looking at the price

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because the camera looked
at where their eyes were looking.

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- [Narrator] Want to see 
more economists in the wild?

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Check out our playlist.

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Are you a teacher?

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Here's some related material 
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♪ [music] ♪