Distributed Cognition and Consumer Choice: Plugging Semiotics into Neuroeconomics

46 Pages Posted: 22 Jun 2011

See all articles by Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

Carsten Herrmann-Pillath

Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies

Date Written: June 22, 2011

Abstract

Recently, Glimcher has proposed a reductionist model of choice which directly reduces a modified version of economic utility theory to neuroscience. I propose an alternative conceptual framework that adopts the position of externalism, which I further narrow down to a distributed cognition framework, and eventually to a biosemiotic model of human choice. I relate this with existing modular theories about the brain, which I generalize into a dual selves model. In this model, the internal information asymmetries and deficiencies of the brain/body system drive the reliance of choices on external cognitive mechanisms manifested in sign systems. I analyze this interaction and I apply the combined biosemiotics/dual selves model on an important set of falsifiers of an integrated reductionist model of neuroeconomics, addiction and other consumption disorders.

Keywords: neuroeconomics, semiotics, dual selves, distributed cognition, consumption disorders, addiction

JEL Classification: B52, D80, Z10

Suggested Citation

Herrmann-Pillath, Carsten, Distributed Cognition and Consumer Choice: Plugging Semiotics into Neuroeconomics (June 22, 2011). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1869966 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1869966

Carsten Herrmann-Pillath (Contact Author)

Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies ( email )

Nordhäuserstr. 74
Erfurt, 90228
Germany

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