H．People's shopping behaviour therefore seems to have piggy-backed on old neural circuits evolved for anticipation of reward and the avoidance of hazards．What Dr Loewenstein found interesting was the separation of the assessment of the product (which seems to be associated with the nucleus accumbens) from the assessment of its price (associated with the insular cortex), even though the two are then synthesised in the prefrontal cortex．His hypothesis is that rather than weighing the present good against future alternatives, as orthodox economics suggests happens, people actually balance the immediate pleasure of the prospective possession of a product with the immediate pain of paying for it．
I．That makes perfect sense as an evolved mechanism for trading．If one useful object is being traded for another (hard cash in modern time), the future utility of what is being given up is embedded in the object being traded．Emotion is as capable of assigning such a value as reason．Buying on credit, though, may be different．The abstract nature of credit cards, coupled with the deferment of payment that they promise, may modulate the “con” side of the calculation in favour of the “pro”．
J．Whether it actually does so will be the subject of further experiments that the three researchers are now designing．These will test whether people with distinctly different spending behaviour, such as miserliness and extravagance, experience different amounts of pain in response to prices．They will also assess whether, in the same individuals, buying with credit cards eases the pain compared with paying by cash．If they find that it does, then credit cards may have to join the list of things such as fatty and sugary foods, and recreational drugs, that subvert human instincts in ways that seem pleasurable at the time but can have a long and malign aftertaste．
Questions 1-6
Do the following statemets reflect the claims of the writer in Reading Passage 1? Write your answer in Boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet．
TRUE if the statement reflets the claims of the writer FALSE if the statement contradicts the claims of the writer NOT GIVEN if it is possbile to say what the writer thinks about thisf1．The belief of neoclassical economics does not accord with the increasing evidence that humans make use of the emotions to make decisions．
2．Animals are urged by emotion to strive for an optimal outcomes or extract maximum utility from any situation．
3．George Loewenstein thinks that modern ways of shopping tend to allow people to accumulate their debts．
4．The more active the nucleus accumens was, the stronger the desire of people for the product in question became．
5．The prefrontal cortex of the human brain is linked to monetary loss and the viewing of upsetting pictures．
6．When the activity in nucleus accumbens was increased by the sense of a good bargain, people tended to purchase coffee．
Questions 7-9
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 7-9 on your answe sheet． |
