Abstract:

Consumer neuroscience, as an interdiscipline subject combines psychology, decision, marketing and neuroscience to explain consumer decision making and mental process.This subject gives significant attention to the (consumer) preference, willingness to pay and value evaluation of consumer. Recently, researchers such as Knutson used purchase task paradigm to study product preference, while Plassmann et al used the BDM to discuss the problems such as willingness to pay. Brain-imaging study has found that consumers' purchase behavior relate to the cortex and brain regions that involves MPFC, the insula, OFC and Nucleus accumbens. Most researchers believe that MPFC indicates products preference and value evaluation of consumer, functioning in purchase prediction; The insula activation is closely related with the price; OFC can coding consumer experienced pleasantness and willingness to pay. Meanwhile, Nucleus accumbens plays the same role as MPFC’s and insula’s partial work. However, the buying behavior under the influence of multiple complicated factors such as personal traits, emotion, society and small sample make this simple laboratory research results were questioned in both validity and reliability. Therefore, future research can focus on the following aspects: 1) on technological means, through the integration of ERP and fMRI and other related data to drawing more accurate conclusion; 2)on variable control, focus on the negative emotions, personal characteristics of consumer and other product factors such as price to test their influence on)purchase decision-making; 3)on theoretical study, verify the existing economic theory to better interpret and develop the psychological mechanism of human's daily consumption decision.

Key words: consumer neuroscience, fMRI, MPFC, insula, OFC