Emotion, Decision and the Orbitofrontal Cortex and the Influence of Arousal - Essay Example

The style of writing the article entails the provision of a flashback of an incident that involved the author.  Ariely describes how they conducted a study at Berkeley College to understand the reaction of college students regarding sexual emotions. The major part of the article contains original information from n Ariely himself; it presents information on the experiments conducted at Berkeley College among bright students to facilitate the understanding of sexual arousal in decision-making.

The secondary sources quoted in the article are Macbeth by Shakespeare and Oedipus by Sophocles (Ariely 2008).
Consequently, the article goes further and provides a summary of the study results from Berkeley College, which indicated that most participants of the study have twice higher chances of engaging in odd sexual encounters when aroused. In addition, the study revealed that 25% more students would make decisions to engage in unprotected sex when aroused than when in a cold state (Ariely 2008). These results seem to have been included in the article to provide further insights into the effects of arousal on decision-making.

Critical Summary of “Emotion, Decision and the Orbitofrontal Cortex”
The introductory section of this article begins with a general discussion regarding the operation of the human cognitive system and how various individual systems influence its operations. It seems that it is based on a perspective of previous neurological studies that have been conducted to provide insight into how the human cognitive system functions. In addition, it appears that Bechara, Damasio & Damasio used some secondary information from previously published materials to write the article: he refers to the works of Goldman et al. (1992), Milner and Petrides (1985), and Fuster (1990).

It seems that they were interested in providing proof that the article was based on reporting a scientific study. This is indicated by the provision of information regarding a background of three assumptions in the third paragraph, followed by a hypothesis in the fourth paragraph. To provide a proper understanding of insensitivity to future consequences following bilateral damage of the prefrontal cortex, the author describes a background study involving 82 participants of different genders and ages ranging from 20 to 80 years; this is an indication that the article could have been based on scientific research. Perhaps as a way to provide more insights into the information set out in the article, Bechara, Damasio & Damasio 2000, goes further and describe the roles of VM in decision-making.

The conclusion part of the article describes how the majority of current theories of choice focus on cognitive perspectives, indicating that such theories are based on an assumption of decisions made about cost-benefit analyses (Bechara, Damasio & Damasio 2000). Moreover, this section points out that the somatic marker hypothesis makes a proposition that how individuals make decisions not only based on the severity of consequences and the probability that they would occur but also on the quality of their emotions. This is an indication of a scientific study that usually ends with the author providing his or her perspectives on the outcomes of the study using the results of the study and other secondary materials. Read More