Journal article
The Affective Impact of Financial Skewness on Neural Activity and Choice
Charlene C Wu, Peter Bossaerts, Brian Knutson
PLOS ONE | PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE | Published : 2011
Abstract
Few finance theories consider the influence of "skewness" (or large and asymmetric but unlikely outcomes) on financial choice. We investigated the impact of skewed gambles on subjects' neural activity, self-reported affective responses, and subsequent preferences using functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI). Neurally, skewed gambles elicited more anterior insula activation than symmetric gambles equated for expected value and variance, and positively skewed gambles also specifically elicited more nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activation than negatively skewed gambles. Affectively, positively skewed gambles elicited more positive arousal and negatively skewed gambles elicited more negative a..
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Awarded by National Science Foundation
Funding Acknowledgements
Research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant 0748915 to BK and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to CCW. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.