References & methods

Approach

Each theme on the site is paired with one established finding from behavioral finance or neuroscience. Figures are redrawn from the original papers, not reproduced. Every number was checked against the original article, using the table, page or figure named below. Where a value could only be read from a published chart, it is marked as approximate.

Solimbic is an independent, early-stage project. It is not a clinical study, a medical product or an academic institution. None of the findings below were produced by Solimbic, and none concern crypto assets directly.

References

1. Barber, B. M. & Odean, T. (2000). Trading Is Hazardous to Your Wealth: The Common Stock Investment Performance of Individual Investors. Journal of Finance, 55(2), 773–806. doi:10.1111/0022-1082.00226
2. Barber, B. M. & Odean, T. (2008). All That Glitters: The Effect of Attention and News on the Buying Behavior of Individual and Institutional Investors. Review of Financial Studies, 21(2), 785–818. doi:10.1093/rfs/hhm079
3. Salganik, M. J., Dodds, P. S. & Watts, D. J. (2006). Experimental Study of Inequality and Unpredictability in an Artificial Cultural Market. Science, 311, 854–856. doi:10.1126/science.1121066
4. Schultz, W., Dayan, P. & Montague, P. R. (1997). A Neural Substrate of Prediction and Reward. Science, 275, 1593–1599. doi:10.1126/science.275.5306.1593

Charts

Attention chart

Buy-sell imbalance by abnormal-volume decile for investors at a large US discount brokerage, January 1991 to November 1996, by number of trades. Values from Barber & Odean (2008), Table 1: from −18.15% in the lowest-volume decile to +29.50% in the highest-volume vingtile.

Social influence chart

Gini coefficient of song success in the eight social-influence worlds and the independent world of each experiment. The paper reports these only as bars (Fig. 1); values were measured from the figure and are approximate (experiment 1: 0.28–0.42 versus about 0.26; experiment 2: 0.45–0.56 versus about 0.20). Participant count (14,341) and song count (48) are stated in the text.

Prediction error chart

Schematic of the three conditions shown in Schultz, Dayan & Montague (1997), Fig. 1: unpredicted reward, predicted reward, and predicted reward omitted. It shows the direction of the response only; no firing rates are plotted.

Overconfidence chart

Annualized net geometric mean returns, February 1991 to January 1997, as stated in Barber & Odean (2000), pp. 773–774: households that trade most 11.4%, households that trade least 18.5%, value-weighted market index 17.9%.

Scope and limits

• The attention and overconfidence charts cover US equity investors in the 1990s. Markets, costs and platforms have changed since.
• The social influence chart comes from an online experiment with mostly teenage participants choosing music, not assets.
• The prediction error chart comes from recordings in monkeys. It describes a learning signal, not the experience of human traders.
• Applying these findings to on-chain markets is a research question for Solimbic, not a result.