According to a team of scientists, people are happiest when they perform better than expected in tasks involving a reward for taking a risk. To build their formula, experts asked 26 people to repeatedly complete a decision-making task in which they would win or lose money. The participants also had their brains scanned with an fMRI scanner. Scientists noted that activity in two parts of the brain correlated with the happiness scores given by participants. The ventral stiatum, which sources dopamine neurons, was associated with changes in happiness, while the insula - which is important for emotions including joy – indicated overall levels of the emotion. The resulting equation was then used to examine the emotions of 18,000 people who played a risk-reward game in the The Great Brain Experiment app, which offered a simplified version of real world scenarios. independent.co.uk/news/science/equation-can-predict-how-happy-a-person-is-in-a-single-moment-claim-scientists-9649934.html
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 18:38:40 +0000
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