This just in: people freeze in the face of ambiguity. I was wondering what all those lifesized ice sculptures were doing at SecureWorld Expo in Dallas these past two days.

Here are a few pertinent excerpts from the press release:

As predicted from past experiments in which this type of risk was observed in test subjects, the researchers knew that the Caltech subjects with no brain damage would be more likely to draw cards in the risk game than in the ambiguity game, because people dislike betting when they do not know the odds. They were more likely to take sure amounts, which meant that their fear cost them money in expected value terms.

…

The research also addressed the intensity of the response in the brain as it correlates with degrees of risk. The results for the Caltech students showed more intense activity in the amygdala and OFC when the chance of winning is ambiguous, but there would be no such difference in patients with damage to those areas.

…

"It could be that aversion to ambiguity is like a primitive freezing response that we’ve had for millions of years," Camerer says. "In this case, it would be an economic freezing response."

I think I am going to bring an MRI to my next security conference.