Mom:

I hate to drag science into such an important thread, but this is big:

Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness

Hilke Plassmann*, John O'Doherty*, Baba Shiv, and Antonio Rangel*,

*Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, MC 228-77, Pasadena, CA 91125; and Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, 518 Memorial Way, Littlefield L383, Stanford, CA94305

Edited by Leslie G. Ungerleider, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, and approved December 3, 2007 (received for review July 24, 2007)

Abstract

"Despite the importance and pervasiveness of marketing, almost nothing is known about the neural mechanisms through which it affects decisions made by individuals. We propose that marketing actions, such as changes in the price of a product, can affect neural representations of experienced pleasantness. We tested this hypothesis by scanning human subjects using functional MRI while they tasted wines that, contrary to reality, they believed to be different and sold at different prices.

Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. The paper provides evidence for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates."

From the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences

So let's get this straight.

"Monsiieur, I regret to inform you you are drinking Chateau Ripple December 2007."

"C'est impossible!!! The label says it costs $200 a bottle!!! It takes just like Chateau Lafayette of 1928!!"

"Ah, a thousand pardons, monsieur -- that is the price per ship-container, approximately 24,000 gallons in your measurement...".

But what is really important is the link here between belief and experience.

The degree to which belief monitors the experience of the individual has never been plumbed, and the reason this is terribly significant, obviously is that if amethodology could be trained for selecting and modifying belief, one's experience of the world might tailor itself accordingly. No telling how far this goes. Rapaire might become a pacifist, and Little Hawk become a professional tool-and-die maker. Why, anything might be possible!!!



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