Daniel Kahneman and the role of dual-system approach in pathological decision-making: neuromarketing for neurodivergent?

Decision-making involves identifying a decision, gathering information, and assessing alternative resolutions. Daniel Kahneman popularized the concept of two systems of thought. System one is fast, efficient, confident, and prone to error, while system two is slow, resource-consuming, full of doubt, and less prone to error. On the other hand, it has been hypothesized that specific brain structure modulation enables faster processing and greater accuracy in specific cognitive domains (domain-specific hypotheses), while the cognitive architecture and the capacity for reasoning exemplify general-purpose mechanisms (domain-general hypothesis). Furthermore, at a central level, the decision-making process is accompanied by activations in prefrontal and subcortical brain regions associated with executive functioning, and pathological decision-making is therefore associated with low prefrontal activity. Here, it is proposed that healthy, "neurotypical" people may use Kahneman's two systems in a balanced way and that psychiatric, "neurodivergent" people may use only system one (fast) or the two systems in an unbalanced way. Moreover, it is argued that single brain structures might use Kahneman's system one in a more local "domain-specific" fashion, while system two might use a combination of several brain structures in a more "domain-general" fashion. Finally, two transdisciplinary fields of investigation are introduced, neuroeconomics and neuromarketing, aiming at elucidating new potential pathways in the investigation of pathological, "neurodivergent" decision-making for the discovery of new diagnostic tools and new therapeutic strategies.