Posts tagged gullibility

August 24, 2012 By Barbara Bronson Gray

(HealthDay)—Whether it’s an email from an unknown gentleman on another continent pleading for money or a financial scammer selling a promising penny stock, the young and old tend to be more easily duped than middle-aged people.

Changes in this region could explain why seniors, children are less doubting.

Now, researchers have pinpointed the area of the brain responsible for this gullibility and have theorized why it makes children, teens and seniors less likely to doubt.

The ventromedial area of the prefrontal cortex of the brain—a softball-sized lobe in the front of your head, just above your eyes—appears to be responsible for allowing you to pause after hearing or reading something and consider whether it’s true, according to a study published recently in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience.

Read more …