Individual Differences in Risk Perception and Risk Taking: The Role of Handedness and Interhemispheric Interaction

先前的研究表明，决策过程和大脑组织之间存在联系，而惯用手的强弱与左脑-右脑的互联性有关，是决策风格的一个强大且可推广的预测指标。文献表明，右半球倾向于更敏感和厌恶风险，而混合操作者有更多的右半球处理。因此，预测是，混合手应该比强手更厌恶风险。第一阶段的研究旨在通过检验各种风险现象，如沉没成本、禀赋效应、模糊性规避和风险选择框架“偏好逆转”，来检验这一假设。第二阶段将探索可能导致这些惯用手差异的神经机制。具体来说，第二组研究提出了这些相同的任务与眼动和单向凝视操作相结合，分别用于增加或减少半球间的相互作用。这项工作可能会促进我们对决策行为的理解，特别是对风险感知和风险承担的理解。至少，惯用手的强度可以作为一种筛选工具来识别“有风险”和“无风险”的个体。也许更有趣的是，我们可以使用阶段2中描述的技术来帮助人们更全面地理解他们的决策行为的潜在风险。例如，如果我们发现大脑半球间的相互作用驱动信念更新，人们可以在公共卫生和媒体关系活动中使用眼球运动来增加这种相互作用，从而增加人们对风险的厌恶。

Previous research suggests that there is a link between decision processes and brain organization, and that strength of handedness, which relates to left brain-right brain interconnectivity, is a powerful and generalizable predictor of decision making style. The literature indicates that the right hemisphere is biased towards greater sensitivity and aversion to risk, and that mixed-handers have greater access to right-hemisphere processing. Thus, the prediction is that mixed-handers should be more risk averse than strong-handers. The studies in Phase 1 are designed to test this hypothesis by examining a variety of risk phenomena such as sunk costs, endowment effects, ambiguity-avoidance, and risky choice framing "preference reversals." Phase 2 will explore the neural mechanisms that may underlie these handedness differences. Specifically, a second set of studies is proposed in which these same tasks are combined with eye movement and unidirectional gaze manipulations that serve to increase or decrease inter-hemispheric interaction, respectively. This work may advance our understanding of decision behavior, in general, and risk perception and risk taking, in particular. At the very least, strength of handedness could be used as a screening tool to identify "risky" and "non-risky" individuals. Perhaps even more intriguing, we could then use the techniques described in Phase 2 to help people more fully comprehend the potential risks of their decision behaviors. For example, if we find that inter-hemispheric interaction drives belief updating, one could use eye movements in public health and media relation campaigns to increase this interaction, thereby increasing one's aversion to risk.