Neural representation of preference relationships

This paper indicates that the human product-preference relationship can, using a product selection task, be predicted to an extent on the basis of changes in the oxygenated hemoglobin concentration in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and that functional near-infrared spectroscopy allows this prediction despite the shallow depth at which brain information is measured. A Bayesian three-layer perceptron was used as a predictive model. Results of this work help to lay the foundations for the concept of utility in economics and marketing theories from the perspective of neuroscience and have important significance from a practical standpoint as well.