Brain Buys

by Dean Buonomano

  Figure 6.3 How neurons represent numbers: (Upper panel) Monkeys can be trained to discriminate the number of items shown on a computer monitor (displays with one, four, and five items are shown). Recordings in the prefrontal cortex during the task determined that some neurons are tuned to the number of items. The lines show the number of spikes (spike frequency) in response to each of the three displays. Shaded areas mark the time window in which the stimuli were presented. Note that this neuron was “tuned” to the value 4 because it fired more in response to four items than to one or five. (Lower panel) The brain may encode numerical quantities in a population code: different neurons vary in levels of activity in response to specific numbers. Here the grayscale level represents the number of spikes in response to the number 3 or 7. (Adapted with permission from Nieder, 2005.)

  Priming, framing, and anchoring may all be interrelated psychological phenomena attributable to the same neural mechanisms: the spread of activity between groups of neurons representing associated concepts, emotions, and actions. As we have seen, priming implements a form of context sensitivity. It is not only our decisions and behavior that are dependent on context; not surprisingly, context-dependency is also observed at the level of individual neurons. In sensory areas of the brain, including the auditory and visual cortices, neurons will often fire action potentials in response to a specific “preferred” stimulus, such as a particular syllable or oriented line. The response of many neurons is modulated by the context in which that preferred stimulus is presented; the context encompasses both the stimuli that preceded it as well as other stimuli presented simultaneously. For example, in the auditory system of songbirds some neurons will only fire to a specific syllable of their song, which we’ll call syllable B, if it is preceded by syllable A. Neurons in the visual cortex of mammals typically respond to lines of a particular orientation in a specific part of the visual field. The orientation tuning of these cells can also be sensitive to context. For example, when a single line is presented in the exact center of your field of vision on an otherwise empty screen, by definition a “vertical” neuron will fire more to a vertical line than a “forward slash” line; however, this same neuron might fire more to the forward slash in the context of an entire screen filled with “backward slashes.”37

  Context-sensitivity at the neural level is ultimately responsible for our ability to use context to quickly make sense out of the barrage of information impinging on our sensory organs. But our exquisite context-sensitivity will inevitably encourage us to favor the option in which one-third of the people live over one in which two-thirds of the people die, because life provides a more welcoming context than death.

  The decisions that shape our lives are in part the product of two highly complementary neural systems. The automatic one is rapid and unconscious, and relies to a large extent on the associative architecture of the brain. This system is the more emotional one; it attends to whether things sound good or bad, fair or unfair, reasonable or risky.38 The second one, the reflective system, is conscious, effortful and is at its best when it has benefited from years of education and practice.

  The automatic system can learn to reevaluate established assumptions, but it often requires the tutelage of the reflective system. When we were children we automatically assumed that there was more milk in the tall skinny glass than in the short wide glass. Part of normal cognitive development involves correcting numerous misconceptions of the automatic system, but some bugs remain.

  Some of our irrational biases are certainly attributable to the fact that the brain was programmed to operate in environments dramatically different from those which we currently inhabit. But perhaps the principal explanation for some cognitive biases, such as framing and anchoring, is that they are an unavoidable consequence of one of the main jobs of our automatic system: to quickly and effortlessly provide the context necessary for our decisions. Most of the time context is the source of valuable information. Our sensitivity to context is one reason the human brain is such an exquisitely flexible and adaptive computational device. (One of the most notorious shortcomings of current computer technology is the degree to which it is insensitive to context. My spellchecker, being context-blind, corrects “I will alot half of my time to this project” to “I will a lot half my time to this project.”) The brain’s superb sensitivity to context is a direct consequence of its hardware. In a device defined by its rich interconnectivity, activity in one group of neurons must influence what’s going on in others. Because context-sensitivity is unconscious and at the core of our neural hardware, it is a feature that is difficult, if not impossible, to turn off, even when we would be better off ignoring contextual cues. But this should not prevent us from learning when to use the reflective system to ensure that our cognitive biases are not being exploited to our own detriment, which, as we will see in the next chapter, is often the case in marketing.

  7

  The Advertising Bug

  The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small, but their power of forgetting is enormous. In consequence of these facts, all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan.

  —Adolf Hitler

  Like many children, I learned the fundamental principles of capitalism at an early age: most of the good things in life—candy, skate-boards, movies, video games, bicycles—could only be obtained in exchange for hard-to-come-by, small, rectangular, green pieces of paper. But, what was perplexing to me was TV—it was entertaining, it provided hours of fun, and, as far as I could tell, it was all for free. Why did all those nice people at the networks go through the trouble of making these shows and putting them on TV for my entertainment? Upon consultation, my father patiently explained to me that it was not exactly free: companies gave the TV networks money to broadcast their commercials, which in turn persuaded the viewers to buy certain products. My first thought was, suckers! I never bought any products that I saw on TV and I certainly didn’t intend to now that I was on to their nefarious mind-controlling scheme. Of course, at the time, and today, my tastes and desires were shaped by marketing and advertising.

  Like many men, when I asked my wife to marry me, I presented her with a diamond engagement ring. In doing so, deep down I assumed I was taking part in a centuries-old tradition, presumably started by some lovesick medieval suitor who, for some reason, hoped that a pretty stone would help sway the target of his affection. Not so. While there was a long tradition of giving betrothal rings as a commitment to marry, the custom of giving diamond engagement rings, as we know it today, was in large part manufactured by one of the most effective marketing campaigns in history. 1

  In the early twentieth century, diamond sales were rapidly declining. Diamonds had few practical applications, and their monetary value relied on the belief that they were rare and desirable. This posed a serious problem to the one company that essentially had complete control over the diamond market, De Beers. In 1938, De Beers hired an advertising agency called N.W. Ayer to address the problem. Ayer proposed that it would be possible to increase sales by reshaping social attitudes toward diamonds. This could be achieved by burning the association between diamonds and love into the collective mind of the public, and coaxing young men and women into viewing the diamond engagement ring as a central part of the romantic courtship. In addition to magazine spreads showing movie stars with diamonds, the agency arranged for Hollywood movies to incorporate diamond engagement rings into the plot (product placement is not a new Hollywood development). In many ways the campaign culminated when a copywriter at Ayer eventually coined the eternal slogan: “A diamond is forever” (Ayer also conjured the “Be all that you can be” slogan for the U.S. Army.

  The approach was rather unique at the time. They were not pushing a particular brand or even a product; the objective was to engrain the notion that diamonds are the symbol o
f everlasting love into the social psyche. In a manner of speaking, the goal was to exploit the associative architecture of the brain: to get the neurons activated by the concepts of “love” and “marriage” to open a direct line of communication with the “diamond” neurons (that is, the neurons that encode the concept of “diamonds”). By 1941, diamond sales had increased by 55 percent and 20 years later the Ayer agency concluded that “To this new generation a diamond ring is considered a necessity to engagements by virtually everyone.”2 As the decades passed, the De Beers campaigns were tuned to new circumstances. The initial campaigns emphasized the size of diamonds—the bigger, the better. In the sixties, however, new diamond mines were discovered in Siberia, and these mines produced a large amount of relatively small diamonds. The solution was to market the “eternity ring”—a ring studded with small diamonds as a symbol of renewed love. Together, the De Beers campaign strategies were absolutely brilliant. By equating eternal love with diamonds, marketers were not only able to increase diamond sales but also to dramatically decrease the secondhand market of diamonds. The downside of having a product that lasts forever is that it lasts forever. Someone can sell that product in mint condition at any point in the future. But the diamonds sitting around in jewelry boxes have symbolized love for decades. What kind of person would sell a symbol of love, and who would want to buy used love?

  Advertising and its ideological brother, propaganda, come in many forms and flavors: from the blatant flashing neon signs, to the subtly embedded products in a scene or plot of a movie, to political campaigns aimed at promoting a candidate or ideology. In each case, the goal is to mold our habits, desires, and opinions. The average inhabitant of a modern city is subject to a relentless multisensory marketing bombardment. Our visual system is the target of an avalanche of information that could have induced seizures in the unsuspecting brains of our ancestors—advertising in movie theaters, the Internet, street billboards, buses, subways, and even LCD screens in elevators and above gas pumps. Similarly, our auditory system submits to TV ads, radio commercials, and telemarketers. More surreptitiously our sense of smell is the target of finely tuned variations of vanilla and citrus scents aimed at enticing us to buy clothes or to linger in a casino longer. With direct advertising, such as TV commercials, billboards, and junk mail, people are generally cognizant that marketers are continuously trying to cajole them into buying, eating, or wearing whatever is being marketed. But what is often not fully appreciated is the degree to which marketing campaigns take a long-term view; some are not aimed at paying off within weeks or months, but over years and decades. As Edward Bernays, considered by some to be the father of modern advertising techniques, explained in his 1928 book Propaganda:

  If, for instance, I want to sell pianos, it is not sufficient to blanket the country with a direct appeal, such as: “You buy a Mozart piano now. It is cheap. The best artists use it. It will last for years”…. The modern propagandist therefore sets to work to create circumstances which will modify that custom. He appeals perhaps to the home instinct which is fundamental. He will endeavor to develop public acceptance of the idea of a music room in the home. This he may do for example, by organizing an exhibition of period music rooms designed by well-known decorators who themselves exert an influence on the buying groups…. Under the old salesmanship the manufacturer said to the prospective purchaser, “Please buy a piano.” The new salesmanship has reversed the process and caused the prospective purchaser to say to the manufacturer, “Please sell me a piano.”3

  Bernays was Sigmund Freud’s nephew, and he used Freud’s view that we all have unconscious desires lurking within us as a tool to sell to and manipulate the masses. His fundamental insight was that people don’t necessarily know what they want. Our tastes and opinions could be shaped, and people could be convinced that they needed or wanted better clothes, cigarettes, kitchen appliances, pianos, and so on. Bernays’s principles were highly influential in both marketing and politics. Indeed it is said that Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany, was strongly influenced by Bernays.4

  In the United States alone, companies invest over $100 billion annually to convince us to spend trillions of dollars on their products. It is difficult to measure how effective these campaigns are, but as exemplified by the diamonds-are-forever campaign, in some cases they are so successful that they change the very fabric of our culture. The cigarette campaigns in the beginning of and the marketing of bottled water toward the end of the twentieth century are other examples of how successful marketing can be. In the former case, we were persuaded to buy a product that not only had little actual function or benefit, but that proved deadly in the long run. In the later case, we were swayed into paying for a product that we can obtain essentially for free. Most people cannot distinguish bottled from tap water, much less between brands of bottled water—which is why you will rarely hear of a bottled water company proposing a blind taste test.5

  The ubiquitous presence of marketing in the modern world is a direct consequence of its success, that is to say, of our susceptibility to it. And since what is best for marketers is often not what is best for us as individuals—as demonstrated by the 100 million cigarette-related deaths in the twentieth century6—it is reasonable to ask why marketing is such an effective mind-control technique. The answers are multiple and complex, but in this chapter we explore two features of our neural operating system that are exploited by marketers. The first relates to imitation, and the second brings us back to the associative architecture of the brain.

  ANIMAL ADVERTISING

  Philosophers and scientists have put forth a rich and ever-changing laundry list of the mental abilities that distinguish humans from other animals: reason, language, morality, empathy, belief in God, interest in baseball, and so on. Indeed, the psychologist Daniel Gilbert has jokingly noted that every psychologist has taken a solemn oath to put forth a theory as to what makes us uniquely human.7 His own suggestion is that it is the ability to think, plan, and worry about the future that is the uniquely human privilege (or curse). My own pet theory of what distinguishes us is that we are the only species on the planet stupid enough to exchange our limited resources for a product that, in some countries, such as Portugal, comes with a warning stating, “Fumar Mata” (smoking kills) in large high-contrast letters on the package.8

  We can train lab rats to press a lever for food, or even to work more to obtain tasty juice over plain old water, but I suspect they would not be willing to work harder for water from a Fiji bottle over New York City tap water. However, most human behaviors are present at least in some vestigial form elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Thus it is worth asking whether other animals exhibit anything analogous to our susceptibility to advertising.

  Let’s assume that if we provide a lab rat with two little bowls of different types of cereal—say Cocoa Puffs and Cap’n Crunch—that on average they will consume approximately the same amount of both. Do you think there is some sort of rodent marketing campaign we could launch to bias the rat’s preference toward one cereal over the other? It turns out that if we let the rat hang out with another rat that spent his day eating Cocoa Puffs (because no one gave him a bowl of Cap’n Crunch), when faced with its initial choice, our rat will now show a preference for Cocoa Puffs. You can call this peer-pressure, copy-catting, or imitation, but psychologists call this socially transmitted food preference.9 The adaptive value of this form of learning is obvious. When one of our ancestors came across two bushes, one with red and one with black berries, not knowing which, if any, were safe to eat posed a dilemma. If, however, she recalls that just down the river she saw Ug looking healthy and satisfied with his face smeared with red, it makes a lot of sense to just do as Ug does, and go with the red berries.

  Learning by observation and imitation can be an extraordinarily valuable brain feature. It is by imitation that we learn to communicate, perform motor skills, obtain food, interact with others, and perform
other tasks necessary for survival, as well as to solve many of the little problems we face day to day. When I found myself struggling with purchasing tickets and navigating the Tokyo subway system, I stepped back to observe and learn from the people around me—what button should I press on the ticket dispenser, can I use a credit card, and should I get the ticket back after I go through the turnstile (I learned to pay attention to this “detail” after being temporarily detained in the Paris subway, trying to exit the station without my ticket.

  Humans and other primates exhibit multiple forms of learning that involve observing others, variously called imitative learning, social learning, or cultural transmission. What many regard as the first documented examples of cultural learning in primates started with a clever monkey that lived in a colony of Japanese monkeys on the island of Koshima. She stumbled upon the idea of taking her dirt-covered sweet potatoes over to the river to wash them before eating them. Upon observing this, a few other open-minded monkeys picked up on the idea. Eventually potato washing went viral (at least by monkey standards), and over the course of a few years most monkeys were eating clean potatoes. Although there is some debate as to whether the potato washing ritual of the Koshima monkeys is truly an example of cultural transmission, it is clear that humans are not the only animals to engage in imitation and social learning.10