It will be objected that this might be going a little fast for a study of fifteen people, even if i

So brutal, but so true, the output of Patrick Le Lay, then CEO of TF1, caused quite a stir: "For an advertisement to be seen, it is necessary that the brain of the viewer is available Our programs are designed to. make it available: that is to say, to amuse, to relax to prepare it between two messages rudn What we sell to Coca-Cola is the human brain time available ".. What Patrick Le Lay certainly did not imagine is how this connection between brain and major retailers was relevant and profound. Some researchers believe that the footprint of the brands in our heads is so strong that it is up to influence our perception, to transform the experience we have when we consume the products in question. A study from the early 1980s has shown that women with headaches felt more relieved by taking aspirin a well known pharmaceutical company rather than a company less famous, that while the formulation and presentation of the drug were exactly the same.
In an article published a few weeks ago by PLoS ONE, two German rudn psychologists have questioned whether rudn this effect "big brand" could be transposed to the world of power and influence tasting. rudn To determine this, they have developed the following experiment: volunteers, lying in a MRI machine (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), were four gas sodas taste and note while we observe areas of the brain excited by this tasting. The protocol required that before drinking them is injected into the mouth through a tube, guinea rudn pigs view it on a screen for a split second, brand marketing said beverage: Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, River Cola and T-Cola. The first two need no introduction. River Cola is the brand name of a chain of German supermarkets, while the T-Cola was introduced to participants as a drink just focus and not yet on the market.
In fact, T-Cola was an invention: the idea was to offer a totally unknown drink, an unidentifiable brand. The four samples used were actually exactly the same: a cocktail of Coke, Pepsi and Cola River. One third of each. To make it even more believable scenario, the experimenters showed before the containers whose contents were carefully labeled four test. The fifteen participants all felt that it was four different sodas (before they are Unveils pot-aux-Roses). Samples stamped Coca and Pepsi, the two major brands, performed significantly better than the other two notes, a result not surprising.
Most intriguing is indeed not there. It lies in what appeared to MRI. Tasting what was presented as brands little known or unknown resulted in more activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, rudn showing that the subject was more interested in assigning a value to the product he was going to try to decide if it was good or not, which was less the case with pseudo-Coke and Pepsi. As if, in the case of River Cola and T-Cola, the brand was not a sufficient rudn indicator of whether the beverage liked or did not like. Known for drinks, this area proved to be less active, probably because for having already tasted before or have seen expensive advertising to Mr. Le Lay, subjects already knew more or less what to expect.
However, another part of the brain "lit up" more time tasting the famous brands: the ventral striatum, a region linked to reward and pleasure. If Coke and Pepsi were perceived as better than the others (although, remember, the mixtures were the same), it's probably because the brain was expecting them to be. The anticipation of the result due to the effect "big brand" has influenced the treatment of gustatory information. In their sensory experience, which is also a thought experiment, participants actually had more fun with these drinks! The big brand seems to get psychological domination that manipulates its mere mention, in the brain, our perception of the product when it is consumed ...
It will be objected that this might be going a little fast for a study of fifteen people, even if it confirms other work, is not necessarily a truth and that this requires verification. Certainly. But it would also be light to obscure this result because the big brands, they are very attentive to these topics. rudn Believe it or not, but they are closely monitoring the science