AFFECT/REASON AND NEUROMARKETING
Other potential paper topics
1) Neuromarketing research institutes (BrightHouse, affiliated with Emory University’s
Institute for Thought Science; Neurosense of Oxford)
2) Commercial Alert’s campaign against neuromarketing
Key areas and concepts
1) NEUROMARKETING
Neuromarketers use brain science to "read the minds" of their
subjects; then they use the information they glean to refine
their products and ads into more attractive forms that they
hope will help sales skyrocket. "Companies try to make
products that appeal to the people who buy them," says a
marketing executive. "That's a time-honored tradition in our
capitalist society, nothing strange or unique about that."
Given that the focus of our course is Media and Promotionalism, we have an ongoing and vested
interest in how communication strategies are being implemented to influence us—whether it be
in consumption or politics.
Simply put, marketing executives are increasingly looking to neuroscience to help them more
effectively brand products to increase sales
In other words, they are looking for differential responses to different products and branding
Caveat: cognitive science cannot explain or predict human decision-making in the real
world—not yet…
- in other words, the science remains highly speculative
In technical terms, they are scanning our brains to look for neural correlates of brand effects
The primary technique for doing this is through fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)
which tracks neural blood flows as people process information (perform mental tasks)
NEUROMARKETING 1
Coke, Pepsi, and neuroscience
At issue here is whether ‘taste’ or preference is a priori—that is, neurologically hardwired
- Read Montague of the Baylor College of Medicine did a now-famous study on the neural
correlates of brand effects of Coke and Pepsi
- In a blind taste test, the majority selected Pepsi, and their ventral medial cortex light up
- Crudely speaking, we can say that the ventral medial cortex controls ‘rational thought’
- When they were told that the sample was Pepsi, there was no change in choice or brain
activity
- When they were told it was Coke, there was an increase in other parts of the
brain—specifically the ventral putamen (areas thought to be involved in reward—also lit up
by alcohol and drugs)
In short, this study seems to indicate that branding can alter brain patterns—i.e. that there are
neural correlates of brand effects
This means the brain recalls ‘branded’ images and information which, in turn, overrides the
actual object quality and our taste
Marketers are excited by the fact that ‘brand love’ seems to be just as important as—indeed,
an overriding factor for—‘taste
For Montague, the director of this study, the results are clear: branding has a clear influence
on ‘choice’
But can neuroscience actually quantify the impact of branding on choice (and thus perception)?
Marketers are interested in accessing brain reward areas
Marketers also feel that fMRI research can be more reliable than focus groups (because it
ostensibly measures people’s direct response to products and information
NEUROMARKETING 2
Neuroscientific ‘coolhunting’
Dr. Steven Quartz, Director of the Caltech Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab
- grew up in Toronto and it now a ‘Cognitive Philosopher’
- his lab is currently undertaking a study of ‘cool’
- looking to see how the brain ‘lights up’ in response to ‘cool’ objects
- “neural correlates of cool”
This is what is meant be the neural substrate of cultural messaging
The idea is that your brain actually wires and fires differently on the basis of your
subjectivities, or broad relations to cultural signs and meaning systems
The ability of neuroscientists to even map these distinctions is a result of technological
breakthroughs, specifically the fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imager)
Neuroscientists already have some understanding of the function of different areas of the brain
With an fMRI, they can measure blood flows to particular parts of the brain (i.e. how it ‘lights
up’) in response to different images and information
- despite the technological advancements and empirical understanding in neuroscience (i.e.
how our brain is wired and what does what) there remains a high degree of interpretation
in this kind of neuroscientific research
- because it is trying to measure responses that are largely socially constructed (the
processing—and preferencing—of cultural signs) there is no single formula or magic bullet
with which we can definitively understand this process
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1507/video/watchonline.htm
fMRI as a new methodology
- it allows for an exploration of the relationship b/n objective measures (neural activity) and
subjective measures (e.g. taste and preference)
- marketers like this because it offers new ‘scientific’ examination of the decision-making
process
- and the focus is less on any given individual and more on aggregate data (as is the case w/
focus groups)
- specifically, it allows for the examination of two things:
1) memorability
- done by examining the areas of the brain associated w/ long-term memory
- marketers not only want to ‘cut through the clutter’ but they want their messaging to
‘stick’
2) salience
- how interesting is the stimulus for the brain?
- the insight is meant to be that this is a process which is 80% unconscious
- the idea is that there is an automatic filtering process of what actually gets sent to the
conscious mind
marketers not only want to ‘cut through the clutter’ but they want their messaging to ‘stick’
Quartz sold a technique to Hollywood film studios to help them increase the effectiveness of
trailers to help construct blockbuster films
Thus, he typifies this sort of ‘scientific’ research which seeks to create a (highly profitable)
nexus b/n university research labs and the market
APPLIED NEUROMARKETING 1
- the practice of neuromarketing is not limited to research
- indeed, the whole idea is to apply it to specific ad campaigns and branding
- sometimes those applications are rather crude
- there is a US restaurant chain called Outback Steakhouse
- they handed out signs at an NFL football game that read ‘Sack Attack’ on one side, and
Outback Steakhouse and its logo on the other side
- whenever the home team sacked the quarterback, you were supposed to wave your signs
- the idea was that this isolated the moments during the game when the crowd was
experiencing its most intense rush of collective aggression
- - in turn, it linked a primal activity (eating meat) with another primal brain function
(aggression)
FROM NEUROMARKETING TO NEUROPOLITICS
All semester we have been focusing on various forms of persuasion—thru. branding, marketing,
promotionalism, etc.
We have also established two main areas in which this persuasion takes place:
1) Consumption; 2) Politics
So far we have looked at neuromarketing
A Summary of Neuromarketing: A New Era of Mind Control?
Some scientists are concerned over the corporate use of brain imaging
Dr. Steven Rose, a British biology professor situates ‘neuromarketing’ research in a long history
of attempts at mind control
He notes how during the 1950s and 60s, DARPA (same people who funded the internet) were
financing research into the manipulation of mental processes
- in part done by altering perception
- this was in the context of the Cold War—fear of Soviet use of psychological warfare
- one early research program was dosing soldiers with acid (also done by the British Army)
http://thedea.org/LSDtroops.html
MKULTRA-Allen Institute of McGill University
- the US mind-control study was called MK ULTRA—over 30 universities and institutes
participated in this CIA-financed experiment
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4f/DeclassifiedMKULTRA.jpg
- most of the records were purposely destroyed in 1973 under the orders of Nixon-appointed
director off the CIA so the full extent o the research remains unclear
- we do know that drugs were administered to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors,
other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients
- they even set up a sting operation at a brothel; the johns were made an offer they couldn’t
refuse
- what we do know is that some experiments were undertaken at McGill University
- the Allan Institute was world renowned for its psychiatric research
- an American doctor was on faculty there and accepted secret CIA funding for more acid
testing
- he developed a practice called psychic driving for use on schizophrenics
- this medical practice consisted of heavy electroshock therapy (30 to 40 times stronger normal
levels) to ‘erase’ the mind of patients
- then, he would use paralytic drugs to medically-induced a coma for weeks at a time
- then he would play tape loops of noise and simple repetitive statements to ‘rebuild’ their
psyches
- he administered heavy doses of acid as well
- most of his patients had no idea what they were being subjected to; most were admitted to
the institute for depression, anxiety disorder, or postpartum depression
- many suffered severe and permanent mental damage from these experiments and some
committed suicide
- Dr. Cameron was the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association; president of both
the Canadian and American Psychiatric Association; and, a decade before these experiments he
was an ‘expert’ in the Medical Tribunal of the Nuremberg trials (Nazi human experiments)
Current military research
- with the ‘war on terror’ there has been renewed interest in ‘mind control’ research
- one example is research into a technique called ‘brain-fingerprinting’ with the claim that it
can determine the ‘truth’ regarding a crime or terrorist activity
- this procedure has already been accepted as evidence in a US court
- there is another technique called Transcranial Magnetic Simulation (TMS) which entails a
focused heavy magnetic field on the brain
- the idea is that it can affect thought
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was loosely based on this technique
- the military is funding research to develop a TMS machine that can work at a distance—aim it
at the enemy and get them to surrender
Keep all of this research in mind particularly in the context of the US war on terror and its
regime of pre-emptive detention
NEUROPOLITICS
First, a distinction: neuropolitics can apply to two different things
1) A form of neuromarketing applied to politics—i.e. a technological updating of Luntz
2) Implications for political theory in general
Basic question for 2):
Are there limits to rational thought in politics?
What role does emotion/affect play in the construction of our political preferences?
Mind-Body
But first, let’s resituate our exploration between rational choice and emotional/affective
persuasion by revisiting a fundamental philosophical problem:
What is the relationship between the Mind and Body?
Recall a claim I have made repeatedly: we (along with every other organism) do nothing but
process stimuli—the question is how?
Two questions
1) Does the logical mind operate independently of the feeling body?
2) Is the logical mind the executive operator of the feeling body?
Mind-Body in philosophy
Descartes
- we are separated into two parts: physical body/immaterial mind
- the mind operates as a rational machine
- the mind has primacy (control) over the body
Ergo Cogito Sum (I Think Therefore I Am)
Spinoza
- the body and the mind are a single substance
- thus there is no meaningful separation between the mind and the body
- rational thought is always shot thru. with affect/emotion
Univocity of Being
Now, how can we—in Communication Studies—address these questions?
We are caught in-between the social sciences and cultural theory (interpretive theories of
culture)
Science
- pursue ‘predictive science’ which minimizes the creative dimension of culture
- the mind as something open to objective analysis (as a neurological object)
- often understood reductively in relation to the cultural (social, political, economic, etc.)
Cultural theory
- minimizes science to maximize the role of creativity in thought, emotion, and culture
- yet there is often a contradictory effect in this understanding of the body
- creativity, emotion, and culture are emphasized
- yet the body is usually only understood thru. representation (discursive; socially
constructed) or performativity
- typically, there is a strict refusal of understanding the body as a biological organism—a fear
of biological reductionism; genetic determinism, etc.
- this fear, in part, stems from earlier problematic models of social darwinism, phrenology,
etc.
William Connolly suggests an interdisciplinary approach:
What about considering the complex interrelationship between the cultural and the
biological—a biocultural disposition?
It is because of recent developments in neuroscience that Connolly is able to make such a
proposal
Can we reconsider the relationship b/n the mind and body (b/n reason and emotion/affect) by
forging the following links:
a) neuroscience
- observational/experimental
- the study of body/brain processes
- using fMRI
b) phenomenology (perception; or how we experience events)
- how do we experience events (measured above as body/brain processes)
- how do we understand implicit structures of experience that influence perception, desire,
and culture?
Do those explicit structures of experience get coded in our neural structures?
Is there a more fundamental interrelationship b/n the brain and the body?
Do experiences—and cultural signs and discursive frames—alter our neurological patterns?
Is there a mutual constitution of emotion/affect and reason?
Is there a biocultural disposition?
In short, does (cultural) persuasion also have a neurological manifestation or interface?
A) and B); science and cultural theory; observation/experiment and experience
Contextualizing the biocultural disposition
“Gage’s story was the historical beginnings of the study of the biological basis of behavior.”
(Antonio Damasio)
Phineas Gage video
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1302/video/watchonline.htm
Phineas Gage article
http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/
Antonio Damasio
- neuroscientist at University of Southern California
- before Damasio, neuroscience mostly focused on cognition
- Damasio’s interest is in affect/emotion
- emotion is central to decision-making
- even though we subjectively experience the decision-making process as rational and
detached, we are to some extent governed by emotional responses to the available courses
of action
- Damasio’s research suggests that without emotion/affect, the rational mind is
incapacitated
William Connolly
- Political Theory professor at Johns Hopkins University
- undertaking a cutting-edge interdisciplinary project, making links b/n neuroscientific
research and political theory
- on the simplest level, he asks what role does emotion play in political judgement?
- This entails a questioning of mind-body; reason-affect
Other potential paper topics
1) Neuromarketing research institutes (BrightHouse, affiliated with Emory University’s
Institute for Thought Science; Neurosense of Oxford)
2) Commercial Alert’s campaign against neuromarketing
Key areas and concepts
1) NEUROMARKETING
Neuromarketers use brain science to "read the minds" of their
subjects; then they use the information they glean to refine
their products and ads into more attractive forms that they
hope will help sales skyrocket. "Companies try to make
products that appeal to the people who buy them," says a
marketing executive. "That's a time-honored tradition in our
capitalist society, nothing strange or unique about that."
Given that the focus of our course is Media and Promotionalism, we have an ongoing and vested
interest in how communication strategies are being implemented to influence us—whether it be
in consumption or politics.
Simply put, marketing executives are increasingly looking to neuroscience to help them more
effectively brand products to increase sales
In other words, they are looking for differential responses to different products and branding
Caveat: cognitive science cannot explain or predict human decision-making in the real
world—not yet…
- in other words, the science remains highly speculative
In technical terms, they are scanning our brains to look for neural correlates of brand effects
The primary technique for doing this is through fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)
which tracks neural blood flows as people process information (perform mental tasks)
NEUROMARKETING 1
Coke, Pepsi, and neuroscience
At issue here is whether ‘taste’ or preference is a priori—that is, neurologically hardwired
- Read Montague of the Baylor College of Medicine did a now-famous study on the neural
correlates of brand effects of Coke and Pepsi
- In a blind taste test, the majority selected Pepsi, and their ventral medial cortex light up
- Crudely speaking, we can say that the ventral medial cortex controls ‘rational thought’
- When they were told that the sample was Pepsi, there was no change in choice or brain
activity
- When they were told it was Coke, there was an increase in other parts of the
brain—specifically the ventral putamen (areas thought to be involved in reward—also lit up
by alcohol and drugs)
In short, this study seems to indicate that branding can alter brain patterns—i.e. that there are
neural correlates of brand effects
This means the brain recalls ‘branded’ images and information which, in turn, overrides the
actual object quality and our taste
Marketers are excited by the fact that ‘brand love’ seems to be just as important as—indeed,
an overriding factor for—‘taste
For Montague, the director of this study, the results are clear: branding has a clear influence
on ‘choice’
But can neuroscience actually quantify the impact of branding on choice (and thus perception)?
Marketers are interested in accessing brain reward areas
Marketers also feel that fMRI research can be more reliable than focus groups (because it
ostensibly measures people’s direct response to products and information
NEUROMARKETING 2
Neuroscientific ‘coolhunting’
Dr. Steven Quartz, Director of the Caltech Social Cognitive Neuroscience Lab
- grew up in Toronto and it now a ‘Cognitive Philosopher’
- his lab is currently undertaking a study of ‘cool’
- looking to see how the brain ‘lights up’ in response to ‘cool’ objects
- “neural correlates of cool”
This is what is meant be the neural substrate of cultural messaging
The idea is that your brain actually wires and fires differently on the basis of your
subjectivities, or broad relations to cultural signs and meaning systems
The ability of neuroscientists to even map these distinctions is a result of technological
breakthroughs, specifically the fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imager)
Neuroscientists already have some understanding of the function of different areas of the brain
With an fMRI, they can measure blood flows to particular parts of the brain (i.e. how it ‘lights
up’) in response to different images and information
- despite the technological advancements and empirical understanding in neuroscience (i.e.
how our brain is wired and what does what) there remains a high degree of interpretation
in this kind of neuroscientific research
- because it is trying to measure responses that are largely socially constructed (the
processing—and preferencing—of cultural signs) there is no single formula or magic bullet
with which we can definitively understand this process
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1507/video/watchonline.htm
fMRI as a new methodology
- it allows for an exploration of the relationship b/n objective measures (neural activity) and
subjective measures (e.g. taste and preference)
- marketers like this because it offers new ‘scientific’ examination of the decision-making
process
- and the focus is less on any given individual and more on aggregate data (as is the case w/
focus groups)
- specifically, it allows for the examination of two things:
1) memorability
- done by examining the areas of the brain associated w/ long-term memory
- marketers not only want to ‘cut through the clutter’ but they want their messaging to
‘stick’
2) salience
- how interesting is the stimulus for the brain?
- the insight is meant to be that this is a process which is 80% unconscious
- the idea is that there is an automatic filtering process of what actually gets sent to the
conscious mind
marketers not only want to ‘cut through the clutter’ but they want their messaging to ‘stick’
Quartz sold a technique to Hollywood film studios to help them increase the effectiveness of
trailers to help construct blockbuster films
Thus, he typifies this sort of ‘scientific’ research which seeks to create a (highly profitable)
nexus b/n university research labs and the market
APPLIED NEUROMARKETING 1
- the practice of neuromarketing is not limited to research
- indeed, the whole idea is to apply it to specific ad campaigns and branding
- sometimes those applications are rather crude
- there is a US restaurant chain called Outback Steakhouse
- they handed out signs at an NFL football game that read ‘Sack Attack’ on one side, and
Outback Steakhouse and its logo on the other side
- whenever the home team sacked the quarterback, you were supposed to wave your signs
- the idea was that this isolated the moments during the game when the crowd was
experiencing its most intense rush of collective aggression
- - in turn, it linked a primal activity (eating meat) with another primal brain function
(aggression)
FROM NEUROMARKETING TO NEUROPOLITICS
All semester we have been focusing on various forms of persuasion—thru. branding, marketing,
promotionalism, etc.
We have also established two main areas in which this persuasion takes place:
1) Consumption; 2) Politics
So far we have looked at neuromarketing
A Summary of Neuromarketing: A New Era of Mind Control?
Some scientists are concerned over the corporate use of brain imaging
Dr. Steven Rose, a British biology professor situates ‘neuromarketing’ research in a long history
of attempts at mind control
He notes how during the 1950s and 60s, DARPA (same people who funded the internet) were
financing research into the manipulation of mental processes
- in part done by altering perception
- this was in the context of the Cold War—fear of Soviet use of psychological warfare
- one early research program was dosing soldiers with acid (also done by the British Army)
http://thedea.org/LSDtroops.html
MKULTRA-Allen Institute of McGill University
- the US mind-control study was called MK ULTRA—over 30 universities and institutes
participated in this CIA-financed experiment
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4f/DeclassifiedMKULTRA.jpg
- most of the records were purposely destroyed in 1973 under the orders of Nixon-appointed
director off the CIA so the full extent o the research remains unclear
- we do know that drugs were administered to CIA employees, military personnel, doctors,
other government agents, prostitutes, mentally ill patients
- they even set up a sting operation at a brothel; the johns were made an offer they couldn’t
refuse
- what we do know is that some experiments were undertaken at McGill University
- the Allan Institute was world renowned for its psychiatric research
- an American doctor was on faculty there and accepted secret CIA funding for more acid
testing
- he developed a practice called psychic driving for use on schizophrenics
- this medical practice consisted of heavy electroshock therapy (30 to 40 times stronger normal
levels) to ‘erase’ the mind of patients
- then, he would use paralytic drugs to medically-induced a coma for weeks at a time
- then he would play tape loops of noise and simple repetitive statements to ‘rebuild’ their
psyches
- he administered heavy doses of acid as well
- most of his patients had no idea what they were being subjected to; most were admitted to
the institute for depression, anxiety disorder, or postpartum depression
- many suffered severe and permanent mental damage from these experiments and some
committed suicide
- Dr. Cameron was the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association; president of both
the Canadian and American Psychiatric Association; and, a decade before these experiments he
was an ‘expert’ in the Medical Tribunal of the Nuremberg trials (Nazi human experiments)
Current military research
- with the ‘war on terror’ there has been renewed interest in ‘mind control’ research
- one example is research into a technique called ‘brain-fingerprinting’ with the claim that it
can determine the ‘truth’ regarding a crime or terrorist activity
- this procedure has already been accepted as evidence in a US court
- there is another technique called Transcranial Magnetic Simulation (TMS) which entails a
focused heavy magnetic field on the brain
- the idea is that it can affect thought
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was loosely based on this technique
- the military is funding research to develop a TMS machine that can work at a distance—aim it
at the enemy and get them to surrender
Keep all of this research in mind particularly in the context of the US war on terror and its
regime of pre-emptive detention
NEUROPOLITICS
First, a distinction: neuropolitics can apply to two different things
1) A form of neuromarketing applied to politics—i.e. a technological updating of Luntz
2) Implications for political theory in general
Basic question for 2):
Are there limits to rational thought in politics?
What role does emotion/affect play in the construction of our political preferences?
Mind-Body
But first, let’s resituate our exploration between rational choice and emotional/affective
persuasion by revisiting a fundamental philosophical problem:
What is the relationship between the Mind and Body?
Recall a claim I have made repeatedly: we (along with every other organism) do nothing but
process stimuli—the question is how?
Two questions
1) Does the logical mind operate independently of the feeling body?
2) Is the logical mind the executive operator of the feeling body?
Mind-Body in philosophy
Descartes
- we are separated into two parts: physical body/immaterial mind
- the mind operates as a rational machine
- the mind has primacy (control) over the body
Ergo Cogito Sum (I Think Therefore I Am)
Spinoza
- the body and the mind are a single substance
- thus there is no meaningful separation between the mind and the body
- rational thought is always shot thru. with affect/emotion
Univocity of Being
Now, how can we—in Communication Studies—address these questions?
We are caught in-between the social sciences and cultural theory (interpretive theories of
culture)
Science
- pursue ‘predictive science’ which minimizes the creative dimension of culture
- the mind as something open to objective analysis (as a neurological object)
- often understood reductively in relation to the cultural (social, political, economic, etc.)
Cultural theory
- minimizes science to maximize the role of creativity in thought, emotion, and culture
- yet there is often a contradictory effect in this understanding of the body
- creativity, emotion, and culture are emphasized
- yet the body is usually only understood thru. representation (discursive; socially
constructed) or performativity
- typically, there is a strict refusal of understanding the body as a biological organism—a fear
of biological reductionism; genetic determinism, etc.
- this fear, in part, stems from earlier problematic models of social darwinism, phrenology,
etc.
William Connolly suggests an interdisciplinary approach:
What about considering the complex interrelationship between the cultural and the
biological—a biocultural disposition?
It is because of recent developments in neuroscience that Connolly is able to make such a
proposal
Can we reconsider the relationship b/n the mind and body (b/n reason and emotion/affect) by
forging the following links:
a) neuroscience
- observational/experimental
- the study of body/brain processes
- using fMRI
b) phenomenology (perception; or how we experience events)
- how do we experience events (measured above as body/brain processes)
- how do we understand implicit structures of experience that influence perception, desire,
and culture?
Do those explicit structures of experience get coded in our neural structures?
Is there a more fundamental interrelationship b/n the brain and the body?
Do experiences—and cultural signs and discursive frames—alter our neurological patterns?
Is there a mutual constitution of emotion/affect and reason?
Is there a biocultural disposition?
In short, does (cultural) persuasion also have a neurological manifestation or interface?
A) and B); science and cultural theory; observation/experiment and experience
Contextualizing the biocultural disposition
“Gage’s story was the historical beginnings of the study of the biological basis of behavior.”
(Antonio Damasio)
Phineas Gage video
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1302/video/watchonline.htm
Phineas Gage article
http://neurophilosophy.wordpress.com/2006/12/04/the-incredible-case-of-phineas-gage/
Antonio Damasio
- neuroscientist at University of Southern California
- before Damasio, neuroscience mostly focused on cognition
- Damasio’s interest is in affect/emotion
- emotion is central to decision-making
- even though we subjectively experience the decision-making process as rational and
detached, we are to some extent governed by emotional responses to the available courses
of action
- Damasio’s research suggests that without emotion/affect, the rational mind is
incapacitated
William Connolly
- Political Theory professor at Johns Hopkins University
- undertaking a cutting-edge interdisciplinary project, making links b/n neuroscientific
research and political theory
- on the simplest level, he asks what role does emotion play in political judgement?
- This entails a questioning of mind-body; reason-affect
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