Neuroscience Research

Our tastes in fashion, and indeed, our ideas in general, are almost never the result of a solo creative effort. Rather, they are influenced by collective behavior of which we may or may not be consciously aware. Robert L. Goldstone and a…

It's no surprise that movies can light up the brain. After all, they can surprise or frighten us, makes us laugh or cry, create suspense, and much more. What IS interesting from a neuromarketing standpoint is that different directors,…

The use of brain imaging in evaluating advertising and products is increasing, and one wonders if the judgment of marketing execs could be clouded by the presence of colorful scan images when used to back up humdrum conclusions in the text.…

Reading a person's thoughts may still be science fiction, but researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University are making surprising progress in specific types of "mind reading." The team, led by computer scientist Tom Mitchell and cognitive…

Why do people do things that will gain them social approval? It turns out that the same parts of the brain are activated for a positive social outcome as for a monetary reward. In other words, the same reward circuitry is turned on both by…

In my time as a catalog marketer, I almost always priced products just below the next dollar increment - a cheap item might be $9.97 rather than $10, while a more expensive item may have been $499, or even $499.99, instead of $500. My…

I love research findings that run counter to intuition, or are at least unexpected, and the idea that you can get more for your house if you market it with an odd price is certainly unexpected. That's what University of Florida researchers…

Consumers must like lots of choices - why else would there be hundreds of shampoo brands and variants on a typical supermarket shelf? Actually, its been known for years that too many choices can reduce consumer purchases. A 2000 study at…

  Erotic images sell better than pictures of office supplies, and a lot better than photos of hairy spiders. Who knew? Actually, that's a bit of an oversimplification. Stanford researchers led by neuroeconomics prof Brian Knutson have found…

In the last day or two, the popular press has been gushing over the finding that meditation can change the brain. I'm not sure why - the twin concepts of neurogenesis (the brain creating new neurons) and neuroplasticity (changes in brain…