Jeff wrote:Happy premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won't....
Oh puh-leeze, Jeff.
Here's some long after-the-fact normalizing of subliminal effectiveness. This stuff has been used since the 1950s and this article is still minimizing it a 'gosh maybe'-
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/subliminal-messages-work.htm
Subliminal Messages Work!
Thu 8 Mar 2007
Posted by Roger Dooley under Neuromarketing , Neuroscience Research
Exciting new research shows that subliminal messages do reach the brain, although their impact on behavior has yet to be demonstrated.
Scientists at the University College London (UCL) have found the first physiological evidence that invisible subliminal images do attract the brain’s attention on a subconscious level. The findings challenge previous scientific assumptions that consciousness and attention go hand-in-hand.
“What’s interesting here is that your brain does log things that you aren’t even aware of and can’t ever become aware of,” Bahador Bahrami from the UCL said. “We show that there is a brain response in the primary visual cortex to subliminal images that attract our attention without us having the impression of having seen anything. (From Subliminal messages ‘impact on brain’)
In one sense, this isn’t a huge surprise. Our past posts on priming, for example, show the impact of information that is assimilated unconsciously. And anyone who has read Malcom Gladwell’s Blink knows that the unconscious mind takes in a whole lot more than one might expect.
Still, it’s exciting to see proof that truly subliminal messages are processed by the brain. Certainly, it would be interesting to better understand the impact of these messages - would people actually act on a message to “Buy Coke”, for example? To some degree, this is of mostly academic interest. It’s hard to imagine regulatory bodies viewing insertion of subliminal messages as acceptable. Nevertheless, understanding how the brain handles subliminal messages will be of interest not only to neuromarketing devotees but the broader group of psychologists, neuroscientists, and marketers.
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/topic/framing.htm
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/bl ... raming.htm
Articles about 'framing'
Mon 7 Aug 2006
Why Negative Ads Work: Framing, Emotions, and Irrational Decisions
Posted by Roger Dooley under Neuromarketing , Neuroscience Research , Neuroeconomics
[2] Comments
It’s no great surprise to marketers, or even most semi-aware humans, that people often make decisions based more on emotion than on rational processing of information. Oddly, for decades economists ignored this apparent truth, assuming that business managers strove for maximum profits, buyers and sellers slid smoothly along supply and demand curves until they intersected, and so on. While some simplification of complexity is necessary and useful - think of the ubiquitous “frictionless surface” so loved by teachers of introductory physics - sometimes it can lead to poor explanations of real world phenomena. Over the years, economists have gradually poked holes in theories based on purely rational behavior, perhaps beginning with Herb Simon’s famous work showing that business managers often strove for satisfactory, rather than optimal or maximum, results. In recent years, neuroscience has entered the fray, with researchers in the new field of neuroeconomics attempting to use the tools of neuroscience to get to the root of human decision-making. Now, brain scan work conducted at the University College of London by Benedetto De Martino offers intriguing proof of the extent to which emotions rule the decision process.
The “Framing Effect”. De Martino’s work is described in a paper published in the current issue of Science, Frames, Biases, and Rational Decision-Making in the Human Brain, abstracted as,
Human choices are remarkably susceptible to the manner in which options are presented. This so-called “framing effect” represents a striking violation of standard economic accounts of human rationality, although its underlying neurobiology is not understood. We found that the framing effect was specifically associated with amygdala activity, suggesting a key role for an emotional system in mediating decision biases. Moreover, across individuals, orbital and medial prefrontal cortex activity predicted a reduced susceptibility to the framing effect. This finding highlights the importance of incorporating emotional processes within models of human choice and suggests how the brain may modulate the effect of these biasing influences to approximate rationality.
The “framing effect” refers to the difference in response to the same question framed different ways. Is a product shown to be 99% pure good? What about a product shown to contain 1% impurities? Same product, almost the same question, but the way the question is asked may elicit sets of responses that are statistically different. De Martino put this issue to the test, by asking subjects questions while they were undergoing an fMRI brain scan. His questions were based on a simple gambling proposition in which people could choose between a certain option and a gambling option. From a press release describing the work,
Subjects were presented with these choices under two different frames (i.e. scenarios), in which the sure option was worded either as the amount to be kept from the starting amount (”keep ￡20″), or the amount to be deducted (”lose ￡30″). The two options, although worded differently, would result in exactly the same outcome, i.e. that the participant would be left with ￡20… The UCL study found that participants were more likely to gamble at the threat of losing ￡30 than the offer of keeping ￡20. On average, when presented with the “keep” option, participants chose to gamble 43 per cent of the time compared with 62 per cent for the “lose” option.
The interesting part is what was happening in the brains of the subjects as they made their choices. In every case, both the amygdala, the brain region thought to control emotions, and the prefrontal cortex, the brain area responsibe for higher level information processing, showed activity. Subjects that exhibited more rational decision-making also showed a greater level of activity in the prefrontal cortex, suggesting that these individuals were better able to balance their emotional response with a rational evaluation process. De Martino notes,
Our study provides neurobiological evidence that an amygdala-based emotional system underpins this biasing of human decisions. Moreover, we found that people are rational, or irrational, to widely differing amounts. Interestingly, the amygdala was active across all participants, regardless of whether they behaved rationally or irrationally, suggesting that everyone experiences an emotional reaction when faced with such choices. However, we found that more rational individuals had greater activation in their orbitofrontal cortex (a region of prefrontal cortex) suggesting that rational individuals are able to better manage or perhaps override their emotional responses.
There’s a great discussion of De Martino’s work in The Framing Effect at the Economist’s View blog. The blog author reprints a great number of charts from the article, and there’s a lively discussion of the relevance of this work to the real world.
What does this research in neuroeconomics tell marketers and would-be neuromarketing practitioners? First, it’s a good reminder of what marketers already know - emotions play a big role in decisions, and the way you frame a question can shape the answer you get. Second, it highlights both the differences in response between individuals as well as their similarities. Most marketing campaigns try to frame relevant issues in a way that makes their product or service attractive; this research suggests that marketers would do well to look for those emotional hot buttons - risk of loss, pain, etc. - and consider them as they lay out the issues.
Negative Advertising. When political marketers highlight obscure or minor negative information about a candidate, they are “framing” that information in a way that makes the candidate look bad. An incumbent who “missed 14 critical opportunities to vote on matters of importance to his constituents” sounds a lot more negligent than one with a “99% perfect attendance record”. Such framing is effective - political marketers have known that negative ads often work (as much as viewers hate them), and now De Martino shows, in part, why they work. 100% of the viewers will have at least some emotional response to the negatively-phrased information. While some “rational” viewers will be able to suppress the emotional response and look at the facts, and perhaps still others will view the ad through a biased lens (see The Neuroscience of Political Marketing), some portion of the viewers are likely to let their emotions rule.
Mon 12 Nov 2007
Political Neuromarketing
Posted by Roger Dooley under Neuromarketing , Neuroscience Research
[2] Comments
clinton brains
I’ve been waiting for the first news of neuromarketing in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, and it has arrived a full year before the election itself. The first few conclusions seem so obvious as to not require firing up a multi-millon dollar fMRI machine:
1. Voters sense both peril and promise in party brands.
2. Emotions about Hillary Clinton are mixed.
3. Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani are on opposite sides of the gender divide.
These were among eight conclusions of a brain scan study described in an New York Times Op-Ed piece, This Is Your Brain on Politics, credited to Marco Iacoboni, Joshua Freedman and Jonas Kaplan of the University of California, Los Angeles, Semel Institute for Neuroscience; Kathleen Hall Jamieson of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania; and Tom Freedman, Bill Knapp and Kathryn Fitzgerald of FKF Applied Research. The details involved in reaching each conclusion may be more interesting than the seemingly bland summaries. Here’s the Hillary Clinton one, for example: (more…)
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/bl ... keting.htm
The Neuroscience of Political Marketing
Posted by Roger Dooley under Neuromarketing , Neuroscience Research
Any experienced political campaign manager will tell you that the swing voters - those individuals who don’t have a strong party commitment - are the ones the candidate has to convince. This may seem obvious - it’s clearly going to be easier to sway a fairly undecided and uncommitted voter than one that has voted a straight party ticket for the opposition for the last twenty years. As it turns out, there’s a growing body of neuroscience research that supports the policy of ignoring the committed base of both parties (except, of course for “get out the vote” efforts for those favorable to the candidate). In late January, Drew Westen of Emory University announced the results of a brain scan study of how political messages are viewed by partisan voters. An MSNBC.com article reports,
“We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning,” said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. “What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.”
The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.
Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.
The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making.
While people not behaving rationally when making voting decisions is hardly “stop the presses” news, the study really points up the near futility of persuading partisan voters with even the most logical appeals. It also explains why sometimes seemingly corrupt politicians get re-elected in some areas. While voters outside the area may shake their head in wonder, what is likely happening is that all of the facts are being processed emotionally by many voters. Negative information is downgraded or discarded, while the candidate’s own explanations are reinforced.
“The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data,”
This raise major questions as to the effectiveness of political marketing. Are the billions spent on a news coverage, editorializing, political advertising, etc. all dollars down the drain? Indeed, in Is This Column Futile, Dick Meyer of CBSNews.com makes that point,
…market research tends to suggest that anyone reading these words right now is more politically engaged than most. So to the extent this column tries to point out contradictions, dishonesty and hogwash in politics and rhetoric, it is probably a waste of time.
I am, it appears, hitting my ventromedial prefrontal cortex against the wall.
The truth is that political advertising DOES sometimes work, and even editorial writers can have an impact. The people who won’t be affected are the most partisan extremes, but there are plenty of voters in the middle who still process information in a rational, or at least partially rational, manner. Time and time again, negative campaigning has been shown to be effective. While some of the appeal of negative ads is emotional, much of the content is presented as factual information: “My opponent accepted campaign money from crooks… She voted to increase taxes… He was absent for many important votes.” Truly partisan voters won’t be affected in the least. Anything short of FBI video showing the candidate taking bribes will be dismisses as opposition rhetoric without any critical thinking involved. Voters closer to the middle, though, will process this information in at least a partially rational manner (including, of course, judging the credibility of any claims), and may be swayed in one direction or the other.
Westen’s findings won’t affect campaign strategies in the least, inasmuch as they more or less confirm what political pros have known all along. I think the publicity WILL awaken a few political types to the potential input of neuromarketing. If you are running a national campaign, either for a presidential candidate or a political advocacy group, wouldn’t you spend a little to strap some independent voters into an fMRI scanner and see which of your commercials light up different parts of their brain? Of course, just like commercial ads, making the linkage between observed brain activity and ultimate behavior (in this case, in the voting booth) may still be a bit tenuous. Still, I’d be surprised if both parties and some of the bigger advocacy groups weren’t already running some tests or at least planning to do so.
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/bl ... riming.htm
Thu 24 May 2007
Product Contagion
Posted by Roger Dooley under Neuromarketing , Neuroscience Research
[2] Comments
product contagion
I recall the first mega-store that opened locally - it happened to be a Meijer store, though now Super Wal-Marts, Super Targets, and other stores that sell everything are common. It was interesting to watch what other shoppers had in their carts as they checked out - a gallon of milk, a floor mop, khaki slacks, and a chainsaw… one could start a creative writing contest in which entrants had to write a story based on shopping carts full of disparate items. As it turns out, there’s a downside to at least some of those weird product juxtapositions. New research shows that products that trigger subconscious feelings of disgust can “contaminate” consumer perceptions of other products.
Products like lard, feminine hygiene items, cigarettes, and cat litter trigger a disgust reaction, as do some less obvious items like mayonnaise and shortening. The research, conducted by Gavan Fitzsimons, a professor of marketing and psychology at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, and Andrea Morales, an assistant professor of marketing at Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business, was intended to explore how products like these affected consumer perceptions of other items in their shopping carts.
They performed a series of experiments in which participants observed food products placed close to or touching a distasteful product. In all cases, products that touched or rested against disgusting products became less appealing than products that were at least an inch away from the offending products. The effect was also enduring. Participants asked more than an hour after observing the products how much they wanted to try a cookie were less likely to want it if the package of cookies had been in contact with a package of feminine napkins.
The researchers say this behavior is not necessarily irrational, as it likely derives from basic instincts that caution humans against eating foods that have come in contact with insects or other sources of germs…
In one experiment, participants viewed packages of rice cakes — some wrapped in transparent packaging and some in opaque paper carrying a “rice cakes” label –that were touching a container of lard. The rice cakes in the clear packaging were later estimated to have a higher fat content than those in the opaque packaging. [From When Cookies Catch the Cooties.]
It’s interesting that packaging was shown to affect the degree of contagion, with products in clear packaging being the most vulnerable to subconscious contamination.
Clearly, marketers can’t control what shoppers combine in their shopping carts, and once the item is in the cart the consumer is almost certain to buy it anyway. It’s doubtful that this negative association is a long-lasting effect that would tarnish the brand or the consumer’s long term feelings about the product. I’d worry more about pre-shopping cart product contagion - i.e., on the store shelf, in displays, etc. Fortunately, most stores segregate their products by category, and one won’t find cat litter in the cookie aisle. Still, marketers should be aware of this previously unknown downside to clear packaging - while complete transparency assures consumers that the product they are buying is exactly what they expect, it seems that clear packaging subconsciously implies a degree of vulnerability. I’d speculate that in retail environments that aren’t well-lit and spotlessly clean, clear packages might allow the products to be “contaminated” (subconsciously, of course) by their surroundings.
These findings might also provide a minor boost for specialty retailers - products sold in a bakery, for example, may end up seeming more appealing to consumers that similar products sold in the bakery department of a megastore where the items will end up sharing cart space with “contagious” items. In the grand theme of neuromarketing, this new research seems to fit into the general area of priming, in which an individual’s subsequent perceptions or behavior have been influenced by seemingly innocuous stimuli.
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/bl ... eurons.htm
Thu 22 Mar 2007
Pain, Fear, and Vicarious Learning
Posted by Roger Dooley under Neuromarketing , Neuroscience Research
No Comments
Why to people react with fear when they see a snake, even though they have never been bitten by a snake or even had much contact with the reptiles? New research shows that the same areas of the brain that react to a personal experience involving pain or fear also react to watching someone else exhibit fear in response to the stimulus.
Study participants watched a short video of a person conditioned to fear a so-called neutral stimulus — something people normally wouldn’t fear — paired with something they find naturally aversive, in this case an electrical shock. The person in the video watched colored squares on a computer screen: When a blue square appeared, the person received a mild shock; when a yellow square appeared, there was no shock. The participant in the video responded with distress when the blue square appeared — he would blink hard, tense his cheek muscles and move his hand…
Participants were told they would take part in a similar experiment, and when presented with the blue square, they responded with fear, anticipating a shock, though they were never actually shocked. [From Fear can be learned through others’ experiences]
The study was done by Andreas Olsson and others at Columbia University, and published in the March issue of the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. We’ve posted about related observations in the past, in particular The Dread Zone: Anticipating Pain and various posts about mirror neurons. In each case, researchers show that subjects experience a brain reaction similar to a real experience when they watch someone else have that experience.
Looked at as a whole, this body of work suggests that advertisers have a powerful tool: showing real people undergoing an experience of some kind may affect viewers as if they were having the experience themselves. Fear and pain seem to be particularly potent, although that may be simply because those topics have been studied more; I wouldn’t want to see an avalanche of ads featuring fearful, suffering people.
One has to assume that viewers, consciously or unconsciously, assign a credibility factor to what they are viewing. In a research lab, viewing a similar subject get shocked when shown a blue square and being told one will participate in the same experiment would no doubt have very high credibility. Conversely, watching a horror movie where household cats become deadly killers may make us cringe when we see a child playing with a cat in the movie, but is unlikely to make us fear cats once we leave the theater. Commercials probably fall in some middle area of credibility - more believable than an obviously fictional horror movie, but less credible than, say, a non-commercial documentary or an in-person experience.
What’s the neuromarketing lesson here? It’s a bit of a stretch to go from fear research to making more effective ads, but I think there are several key strategies one can extrapolate:
1) Keep it real: Use real people, in real situations, with realistic reactions, to produce a stronger learning response than patently false situations, cartoon characters, etc.
2) Maximize credibility: This isn’t demonstrated by the research, but I think it’s clear that viewers discriminate between believable sources (e.g., the Columbia experiment videos) and less believable ones (e.g., horror movies). Hence, the learning response is likely to be enhanced if the advertiser can prepare the viewer with credibility enhancers like study results, a credible endorser or spokesperson, etc.
3) Be careful with fear and pain. Just because you can make viewers vicariously experience pain or fear doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. As I noted in the earlier Dread Zone post, the Lamisil toenail-lifting gremlin definitely makes me cringe, but does that build a good brand association or increase the likelihood of purchasing the product? Perhaps a convincing scenario with a real person showing clear relief after using the product might produce a more effective and profitable learning response.
by monster » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:06 am 
). As I am crouched there thinking about my choice this guy rolls up with a shopping cart. He parks the shopping cart about 18" from me, which was already inside my personal space. Out of the corner of my eye I can see he is slowly inching the cart closer to me. When he got about 6" from me I stood up, turned to him and said, "Hit me with that cart and see what happens". He apologized and moved the cart away from me. 20 seconds later I picked a sandwich and went along my merry way.
