{"id":3965,"date":"2006-01-07T00:58:20","date_gmt":"2006-01-07T00:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/groonk.net\/blog\/?p=3965"},"modified":"2006-01-07T00:58:20","modified_gmt":"2006-01-07T00:58:20","slug":"the-science-behind-branding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/2006\/01\/the-science-behind-branding\/","title":{"rendered":"The Science behind branding"},"content":{"rendered":"
Doherty and colleagues at UCL and the University of Iowa, US, ranked the preferences of human volunteers for blackcurrant, melon, grapefruit and carrot juice, and for a tasteless, odourless control drink.<\/p>\n

The researchers scanned the volunteers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 brains using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect enhanced blood flow in various brain regions \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the greater the flow, the greater the neural activity in those areas.<\/p>\n

They developed a Pavlovian-type association by flashing a geometric shape on a computer screen and giving a squirt of juice into the volunteers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 mouths. However, the volunteers did not realise that they were being conditioned in this way \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they were simply told to press a button to indicate on which side of the screen the shape had appeared.<\/p>\n

The team measured how the volunteers had become conditioned by measuring their anticipation of the juice squirts following an image by measuring the dilation of their pupils.<\/p>\n

The fMRI scans revealed significant responses reflecting learning in the ventral midbrain and the ventral striatum. Crucially, they found that the strength of the response correlated with the volunteer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like or dislike of the juice.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stronger neural responses occur in these regions to a cue that is associated with a more preferred food,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Doherty. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This shows that when you see a cue that is predictive of a reward, you are able to access information about your subjective preferences.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Doherty says this kind of brain programming may have an evolutionary function in helping humans and animals predict both good and bad experiences in their environment<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153For instance, if you learn that a particular fast food outlet gave you food poisoning the last time you ate there \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it is going to be in your interest to know not to go there again once you see the sign for that shop in the street,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he says.<\/p><\/div>\n

squirt<\/a>. squirt<\/a>. squirt<\/a>. squirt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tasty, yes<\/a>?<\/p>\n

I thought so.<\/p>\n

(via boingboing<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Doherty and colleagues at UCL and the University of Iowa, US, ranked the preferences of human volunteers for blackcurrant, melon, grapefruit and carrot juice, and for a tasteless, odourless control drink. The researchers scanned the volunteers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 brains using a technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to detect enhanced blood flow in various brain regions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.groonk.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}