Using Vladimir M's heuristics for evaluating the soundness of the academic mainstream in unfamiliar fields...
1) Is there low-hanging fruit in the field, as in: interesting and doable research goals?
Yes. There are thousands of interesting and doable experiments that can be run on humans and other primates using fMRI, TMS, and optogenetics in order to measure activity in the parts of the brain involved in making decisions under uncertainty.
2) Is the field ideologically charged?
It doesn't seem that way to me. There are standard debates about mindful vs. mindless economics, but otherwise it's basically just figuring out how brains make decisions so we can predict human behavior better. Not too ideological.
A few other things to note:
a) the field is heavily integrated with data and literature in related fields like economics, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology, making use of all the latest results from those fields
b) the field originated in the major peer-reviewed journals in relevant fields, and has remained there (with the addition of new journals dedicated to neuroeconomics)
c) the field is led by respected academics at major universities like NYU, MIT, Duke, and GMU.
The major criticisms of the field come from economists who argue in favor of mindless economics. These economists don't claim that neuroeconomics is wrong, just that one can do economics without caring how human brains make decisions under uncertainty. Neuroeconomics hasn't been criticized much by neuroscientists or psychologists, as far as I know.
Thanks, that's very useful! The field has actually been recommended to me over studying a basic cognitive science textbook; would you make a different recommendation?
What are you trying to get out of studying cognitive science or neuroeconomics in particular?
Probably, I would just read Cognitive Science in One Lesson and then read Glimcher's Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis.
I just realized I never answered your question!
I am trying to get better models for how my brain works so I can lead a more successful/pleasant life. Thus I am interested in understanding things like motivation research, how brains learn via reinforcement (I was lead to believe that this is partially addressed in neuroeconomics), how memory works, affective neuroscience, etc. Does that make sense?
Certainly.
It sounds like what you want is basically the thing I would eventually like to write: a self-help book that draws from all the latest scientific self-help, including stuff (e.g. in neuroeconomics) that is often overlooked by those working in scientific self-help (aka the psychology of adjustment).
If you mostly want to know this stuff for self-improvement and happiness, I suspect badger's review of the Glimcher book has just about all you need.
I doubt that there is a theory at all. I expect that it is just a bunch of experiments with just-so stories.
Controlled experiments show that pictures of brains make papers more credible.
Controlled experiments show that pictures of brains make papers more credible.
Citation needed.
McCabe, D., Castel, A. (2008). Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition, 107(1), 343-352. Blog post summary
See also:
Weisberg, D.S., Keil, F.C., Goodstein, J., Rawson, E., Gray, J.R. (2008). The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(3), 470-477. Blog post summary
there is a review of the subject here
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1792628
and a less wrong summary here http://lesswrong.com/lw/5up/review_foundations_of_neuroeconomic_analysis/
looks interesting, something to keep an eye on
If neuroeconomists can produce better-than-normal economic predictions, they can easily bet on them and make large amounts of money. If they don't, the field probably isn't very useful. At best, it's coming up with a simpler model to explain what we already know.
Can you elaborate on what you're trying to express? I agree with your comment's denotation but not its connotation. Your 'at best' seems like an extremely valuable result.
I think neuroeconomics is aimed at small scale theory of human choice (for example a mechanistic theory which incorporates the useful features of prospect theory) rather than larger scale phenomena. Post edited to reflect this.
Paul Glimcher's book Foundations of Neuroeconomic Analysis claims that the field of neuroeconomics has made great strides in creating a unified descriptive theory of individual human choice, bringing together positive economics (basically insights from VNM utility theory), neuroscience and psychology. The field was recommended to me by a friend doing a PhD in psychology. If true, the field sounds very useful to study. I don't have the cognitive science background knowledge to evaluate the credibility of these claims (my economics background is strong), so I have a couple of questions: