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Walter Mischel,聽is an American psychologist best known for his groundbreaking study on delayed gratification known as 鈥渢he marshmallow test鈥�. Follow-up studies showed that high delayers achieved greater academic success and more-positive relationships. This breakthrough research demonstrated not only that willpower can be learned but also that it seems to be 鈥渁 protective buffer against the development of all kinds of vulnerabilities later in life.鈥� His latest book is called 鈥楾he Marshmallow Test: Understanding Self Control and How to Master it.鈥�

Lesley Fellows is a neurologist specializing in disorders of cognition, working currently at McGill University in Montreal Canada. She has a particular interest in the functions of the frontal lobes. Her research programme focuses on the brain basis of decision making in humans, using the tools of cognitive neuroscience. She studies how focal brain damage or neurochemical dysfunction affects all aspects of decision making, how options are generated and organized, how they are valued and compared, and how choices are made.聽

Mitu Khandaker-Kokoris is an independent game developer, currently at her one-woman studio The Tiniest Shark, and videogames PhD researcher at University of Portsmouth, UK. She makes and thinks about videogames. Most recently, she made a game called Redshirt, a satirical sci-fi social networking simulator. Mitu studied Computer Engineering and won a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit Award last year for her work.

Lesley Fellows argues that self-restraint is hard when we can so clearly see the immediate rewards of a piece of cake. We can vividly imagine the immediate reward and find it harder to appreciate the accumulated downside of many pieces of cake. As these choices are repeated, the cake-eater becomes obese or the smoker becomes ill with heart disease. Dr Fellows argues that we could develop a 鈥楥onsequence Magnifier鈥� which, worn as an eye piece, will calculate the aggregated outcome involved in all decisions and send all the information straight into the brain. A tech support for foresight.

(Photo: Cupcakes. Credit: Getty Images)