That’s right, fMRI brain-scanning technology developed over the past decades isn’t only being used to explain current behaviors in people anymore. Now, it may also enable scientists to predict FUTURE behaviors, according to a recent UCLA study.
Wait, so you’re telling me that by scanning my brain you can tell me what I’ll be doing in five years?
Not yet. But as unlikely as it seems, current medical technology is currently closer to this than it is far.
Some quick background: neuroimaging is a relatively new discipline merging medicine, neuroscience, and psychology which makes use of techniques to either directly or indirectly take pictures of the structure, functionality, and current state of the human brain. Using these images to follow the electrical nerve impulses firing in the brain and changes in blood flow in response to external stimuli, scientists have been able to understand and explain current behaviors in individuals in research studies (they also study the levels of various brain chemicals that play a large role in our actions, such as dopamine, serotonin, and others).
The X-ray was the first technology used to map the brain, followed by more advanced scanning techniques like the X-ray computed tomography(CT scan), computerized axial tomography scan (or CAT scan) developed in the 1970s, and later magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), for which the creators of all three were at some point later awarded the Nobel Prize either in Science, or in Physiology or Medicine.
Understanding and explaining current behavior is one thing, and was a breakthrough in its own right, enabling us to see the processes in the brain that correlate with a specific decision or course of action; but researchers are now attempting something entirely new: predicting future behaviors.
Using the more advanced fMRI scan (functional magnetic resonance imaging), researchers at UCLA were recently able to predict which study participants increased their sunscreen use in response to suggestive marketing and which didn’t, even better than participant’s own best guesses (http://tinyurl.com/2bujplx).
More specifically, researchers studied the brain activity of their subjects as they watched public service announcements relating to sunscreen use, then subsequently predicted which would increase their use and which would not. The scientist’s model predicted the outcome with 75% accuracy, while the best guesses of the participants as to their own use of sunscreen amounted to less than 50% accuracy. That’s a difference of more than 1/4; uncommonly strong results.
Another recent study by University College London (UCL) published in the Journal of Neuroscience used neuroimaging to show that people prone to act impulsively generally have higher levels of dopamine, a brain chemical instrumental in our decision-making processes. The participants in the study with higher levels of dopamine, according to the research, demonstrated an inclination towards decisions that gave them instant gratification versus a longer-term rewards (article: http://tinyurl.com/27q5dqt). This, as well, enables researchers to predict the likeliest outcomes, decisions, or even future actions, according to a person’s brain chemical composition.
The point is, people’s actions are not exactly unpredictable anymore. In fact, these recent studies show that our actions may, in fact, be HIGHLY predictable.
Needless to say, these breakthroughs have numerous implications across all the sciences, and even into the socioeconomic and political realms.
For example, this would enable advertising and marketing firms to predict consumer behavior in response to specific marketing campaigns on a more accurate scale than we’ve ever imagined before. Or, this could enable educators and parents to determine the capacities of their students and children – perhaps even their future specialties, majors, or even professions, with a simple visit to the doctor – long before they ever step foot in a classroom.
The military and governments will surely find (hopefully, not destructive) uses for this technology, as well as anyone else with an interest in predicting future behaviors (read: big business).
Friendgiftr sees the many likely uses in this technology relating to the gift card market.
From predicting which giftcards will be most popular with certain consumers and which will be most unpopular, to understanding specifically how and when people will put their giftcards to use; this opens up a plethora of opportunities.
For starters, this could be the end of the age of the unused or unwanted giftcard. In the future, giftcard givers will likely know how, where, even when the recipient will use (or not use) a certain giftcard, even before he or she gives it.
But until this technology is developed further, there is another solution!
Giftcard recipients (who use Friendgiftr, that is) can exchange their giftcard(s) at no cost for a giftcard from any of FG’s other 140+ merchants or even split it across multiple merchants.
Looks like Friendgiftr is ahead of the curve yet again, at least, until future technology renders this service obsolete. But that is a ways down the road (just not as far as we used to think..)
Anyway, fMRI technology being used to predict future behaviors in study participants, even only 75% of the time, is still a pretty cool step forward.
-Friendgiftr
