The Believing Brain
Prof. Dr. Tali Sharot
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, Großbritannien;
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Diskussionsleitung: Prof. Dr. Benedikt Grothe
Lehrstuhl für Neurobiologie; Vizepräsident der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
»In today’s atomized information ecosystems, compounded by the rise of AI, the distinction between opinion and fact, truth and falsehood, is becoming increasingly blurred. How do people use this abundance of information to form beliefs? Research suggests that the function of beliefs is not simply to provide an accurate reflection of reality. Instead, whether and when we update beliefs depends on the outcomes associated with holding them. These outcomes can be internal, such as hope or fear, or external, such as social approval or material gain, and they do not necessarily depend on whether a belief is accurate. Information that engages the brain’s reward system (including the striatum and midbrain dopaminergic regions) is therefore more likely to be sought out, attended to, and believed. As a result, people sometimes hold onto beliefs despite strong contradictory evidence, yet at other times revise them with little justification. Understanding these processes can help identify ways to design information environments that better support evidence-based belief formation and public trust.«