New Horizons in Science

Baba Shiv put volunteers into an MRI and told some they were drinking $45-a-bottle wine. The others got $5 wine. Those who got the high price tag liked the wine much more. In both cases, it was, of course, the same wine. What Shiv found was not just that the subjects thought they liked the expensive wine better their brain activity showed that they really did prefer it. His studies concern the emotional brain, and they apply to assemble-it-yourself furniture from Ikea, impossible-to-open bubble packages, coffee and tea, and whether we really want freedom of choice.