Newspaper headline: Your brain goes shopping. You go shopping and you see a product. By the time you decided to buy it, some brain regions already knew what you were buying and how much it cost. These brain regions are the neural predictors of purchases, studied by Knutson et al. (2007).

Mark scheme

Marking points from the official mark scheme (May/June 2021). The mark or mark type is shown in brackets.

1. [1] The nucleus accumbens (NAcc) activated by product preference.
2. [1] The insula activated by excessive prices.
3. [1] The mesial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) deactivated prior to purchase.
4. [1] The novel SHOP (‘Save Holdings Or Purchase') task consisted of a series of trials of identical temporal structure.
5. [1] Subjects saw a labelled product (4 secs).
6. [1] Subjects saw the product's price (4 secs).
7. [1] Subjects then chose either to purchase the product or not (by selecting either 'yes' or 'no' presented randomly on the right or left side of the screen; (4 secs)).
8. [1] Prior to the onset of the next trial, participants fixated on a crosshair (2 secs).
9. [1] The brain regions activated by the task, the NAcc, insula and MPFC, will be the same brain regions activated in every participant whatever their culture.
10. [1] People judge the quality of product and price whatever it is and wherever they are.
11. [1] Data (findings) is objective; fMRI scanners were used.
12. [1] Brain is physiological same in all people (all people have NAcc, insula and MPFC).
13. [1] Judging products and price would differ from culture to culture.
14. [1] The products used in the Knutson et al. study might not be available in all cultures.
15. [1] All participants were right-handed, what about left-handed people?
16. [1] Shopping is a real-world task; shopping in a scanner/laboratory is not.
17. [1] Scans are scientific, producing objective data about consumer decision-making.
18. [1] Scans can tell us exactly what part of the brain is responsible for what (the NAcc, insula and the MPFC).
19. [1] Brain function is the same in everyone, a cultural universal.
20. [1] Brain scans usually lack ecological validity: tasks done in a scanner rather than real world.
21. [1] Tasks are usually simple and exclude all the other factors that contribute to a sale: retail ambience; sales techniques etc. They are reductionist.
22. [1] Scans involve anxiety because of unknown procedure which are not usually part of shopping.
23. [1] Conclusion: any appropriate conclusion drawn from the discussion that has been presented.