神经实验与神经经济学

Neural Experiments and Neuroeconomics

经济学正在经历一场托马斯·库恩意义上的“范式革命”。半个多世纪以来,行为经济学家和实验经济学家发现的大量行为异象,对传统经济学“理性经济人假设”的公理系统提出了严峻挑战。在这一过程中,神经经济学及其相应的神经实验发挥着独特的、不可替代的作用。作为一种经验实证的技术工具,神经经济学中的实验手段就如同自然科学中的电子显微镜、天文望远镜和粒子加速器那样,将传统经济学的“行为—心理”分析推向可观察、可控制、可重复的“大脑—神经元”分析,从而为经济学认识人类行为、揭示行为背后的心理动机和偏好机制提供了更为坚实的科学依据。

In Thomas Kuhn’s words,economics is undergoing a“paradigm revolution.”In the last sixty years,behavioral and experimental economists have discovered a massive amount of behavioral anomalies that pose a major challenge to the axiomatic system of traditional economics,with its hypothesis of rational man.Neuroeconomics and the relevant neural experiments have played a unique and irreplaceable role in this process.Experimental methods in neuroeconomics serve as a technical tool for empirical evidence in the same way as electron microscopes,astronomical telescopes and particle accelerators do for natural sciences.These methods elevate the“behavior-psychology”analyses of traditional economics to the level of“brain-neuron”analyses which are observable,controllable,and repeatable,thus providing economics with solid scientific evidence for understanding human behavior and revealing its underlying psychological motivations and preference mechanisms.