Science Forums: Psycho - Viewing Profile - Science Forums

I realised today that I spend about 6 hours a week on a train doing nothing, so I was just wondering if anyone listened to any good podcasts that I could download and listen to on my travels.

I think it would be best if everyone could categorise them into what subject they are normally on (biology, physics, pop science etc.) as well as how detailed or advanced you would rate them and of course how good they are and why they like them.

The neurological basis for decision making has always interested me, for the fundamental reason that how can you actively make any decision if it is all up to the chemistry in your brain, surely at some level it the conclusion you end up with is just fate based on the "chemical balance" of your brain at the time of the decision.

This has been shown to be true in many cases; mood and environment effect peoples decisions, soft chairs have been shown to increase peoples leniency in negotiations, thoughts of disgust and therefore dislike have been superimposed by the brain over whole scenarios even if the subject knew of the artificial cause and it was nothing in the scenario.

Other ideas that have been shown to effect the decision making processes are in everyday life are prejudices such as if someone is black or white, male or female, tall or short, these have been shown in studies that people stick to their own groups, interviewers who grew up and associate mainly with white people will preferentially pick a white person over a black person who are equally qualified in an interview situation even if they don't realise they are doing it. This is even the case with the names of the people with applications with stereotypically sounding black names (Tyrone, Fianzo) getting less responses from companies then the exact same CV with a stereotypically white name (James, Ben).

This doesn't make them racist it is just how evolution has set are brains up to go with what we know. Most people don't even realise they do it and when psychological studies have shown they do they are offended by the assertion and deny it. Myself, I have done one of these Implicit Association Tests and you can pretty much work out what it is going to say before you do it, where I grew up is mainly white, my school was mainly white (95%), my university was mainly white, I am going to subconsciously pick a white person over a black one and that's what the result said, unsurprising. However, that will effect my decision making in my life as anyone you meet and don't know you attribute qualities to them of what you do know about people who look like them, whether these qualities are right or wrong (about the person or the group in general) and this applies to any variable you can think of not just race.

First impression of people have been shown to be made very quickly, before you could even consciously say what your impression was and are nearly entirely based on a bias based on your experiences and these aren't just experiences you have had in the first person; these can also be based off things you have watched on TV or read in the newspaper (whether or not they are true or ever happened).

Some decisions of course are made by "you" and not "your brain", these are the ones that are based on stimuli responses such as whether or not you are hungry, thirsty or tired. But even these can be manipulated, by mood or physical activity etc., for instance if your blood is flowing to your muscles due to exertion you won't feel hungry as your gastric blow flow is restricted so even these are manipulated by other factors.

Then of course there are the decisions you have no control over what so ever such as iris dilation and sweating, they just happen when they are needed and lets all be thankful for it.

I suppose my real question is how much of our decisions is based in our brain, on our physiological state (hunger, tiredness), on our environmental surroundings (music, the seat you are on) and on our prejudices (what we think we know)?

Studies have also shown that while using brain scanners researches viewing real time data of subjects can predict whether a subject will choose left or right on a computer screen 5 seconds before they do it, this is even before the subject consciously knows which one they are going to pick, yet the brain has already chosen. But is the chemistry known to a molecular level, or even a physiological level yet?