Valuable Objects Stimulate Brain More Than Junk

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to researchers at the University of California at San Diego, visual areas of our brain respond more to valuable objects than other ones. In other words, our brain has stronger reactions when we see a diamond ring than we look at junk. Similarly, our brain vision areas are more excited by a Ferrari than, say, a Tata new Nano car. In this holiday season, I'm sure you've received gifts that excited your brain — and others that you already want to resell on an auction site."

Comments

Whose brains, exactly?

[RichardJenkins]

So would all people find a Ferrari more stimulating (neurologically speaking) than a Nano or does it depend on culture?

If it is inbuilt and not a cultural difference perhaps it is possible to extrapolate an idealised design of an object people will perceive as 'valuable'. Could be useful for marketing purposes.

Re:One person's "junk" is another person's treasur

[shadowbearer]

  What about objects that are "valuable" to people without having any monetary value? Art, music... while some people put monetary value on those objects, I doubt that most people do.

  As an example, I have a portrait of myself done by an artist in a bar some years ago; it was done freely and given freely, yet I consider it one of the most "valuable" objects I own. I also have a considerable rock collection - none of it collected for any monetary value, but just for my memories of the trip I collected it on. I daresay many people have similar.

  There are an awful lot of things the people own that have "sentimental" value - value only to themselves, for their own reasons. Putting a monetary value on objects has to have skewed their results considerably.

  I'm no psych researcher, this is just my opinion... which isn't worth much to anyone but me, honestly ;)

Thanks
SB