[Scott Bakker]

This is from the October 24th, 2005 issue of TIME:

Neuroimaging is also extending into the fields of politics and commerce. Tom Freedman, a former senior adviser to the Clinton Administration, along with his brother Joshua, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, last year founded FKF Applied Research, a company that uses fMRI to study decision making. In the run-up to the presidential election, they found differences in brain activity between Bush and Kerry voters when they were shown political advertisements. The Freedmans are also studying leadership qualities, by looking at how people's brains respond to an image of someone they would be willing to follow compared with that of someone they wouldn't. Both studies could help politicians hone their campaign messages to appeal more effectively to voters.

In other words, neuroimaging is telling politicians how to better playact in order to nonrationally persuade voters - which is just to say, how to better manipulate them. From the tone of the article, this is apparently a good thing. But don't worry, it gets even better.

Corporate America, meanwhile, is hoping brain scanning can help sales. "The big question for neuroeconomics is, How does the human brain make decisions like which car to buy or what to have for lunch," says Antonio Rangel, director of the neuroeconomics lab at Stanford. Research is showing that the limbic system, which governs emotions, often overrides the logical areas of the brain, suggesting that the "rational actor" theory of economics misses deeper sources of motivation rooted in unconscious feelings and interpersonal dynamics. Instead of aiming at consumers' logical decision making processes, companies could perhaps appeal to the fuzzier side of how people feel about themselves and others around them.

In other words, rather than presenting consumers a rational choice (which they rarely do as it is), marketers are honing more sophisticated conditioning techniques - they are intentionally trying to avoid the 'logical mind,' which demands pesky things like reasons and evidence for the claims being made. And again, this is apparently an exciting new thing, another blessing from Corporate America, which just happens to own and to advertise in TIME magazine.

Steven Quartz, director of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at Caltech, is one of many experts moving into neuromarketing. He is helping Hollywood studios select trailers for new movies by scanning viewers as they watch a series of scenes to see which ones elicit the strongest reactions in the parts of the brain that are associated with reward expectations. Quartz, who works in partnership with market-research company Lieberman Research Worldwide, is similarly scanning consumers to identify emotional reactions to TV commercials and to products' packaging design.

Of course, Hollywood has to tow the line. But TIME isn't so blithe as to suggest that this isn't upsetting some people...

Neuromarketing has its share of critics. Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit group that Ralph Nader set up to monitor commercial forces in society, sent letters to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee in July 2004 calling for an investigation into the practice. Commercial Alert says it fears neuromarketers could "peer into our brains" and control our buying behavior. Joshua Freedman of FKF says such fears are misplaced. "Some people view this like Frankenstein and brain control, but I think that science, by trying to understand what goes on in human brains, should be very freeing by helping people understand how they make
decisions."

Start a paragraph with a critical worry, but rather than explore the reasons why that worry might be legitimate, conclude the paragraph with a reason why it's obvious alarmist prattle. This is progress, after all, and the knowledge gained will be there for everyone to use. This, of course, begs the question of just who will actually use this information. The average consumer has no inkling the myriad ways they're manipulated as it is (because of the 'autonomy default assumption,' everyone always thinks it's the other guy who's being played). Now we expect them to keep abreast of the latest developments in neuromanipulation?

But just in case this bankrupt justification isn't enough, TIME thought they should provide another...

"This technology is unstoppable," says Stanford's Rangel. That is precisely what motivated Mazziotta to set up the atlas project in the first place: with the proliferation of scanning, there was a flood of information about the brain but nowhere to put it. "Up to now there has been no way to compare imaging work done in one lab to another, or from one person to another. We needed to have some way to organize all this data." The trick now is to figure out how best to use it.

In other words, put your bucket down, there's no way to stop this house from burning. Of course, the issue here isn't one of whether the 'technology is stoppable,' but one of how we, as a society, should regulate its commercial use - just as we do every other technology.

But hey, Corporate America has your best interes - wait a second! That's right, they're mandated by law to serve only the interests of their shareholders, and no one else. It's just easy to forget, I suppose, what with all those ego stroking, glad-handing, utterly disingenuous commercials they beam into your home day and night.

[Dawnstorm]

I wonder how efficient such methods would be in economic contexts. A lot of questions remain that scientists find fascinating, but accountants care nothing about. If they apply brainscans with the same amount of sophistication that they apply survey methods, I'm not all that scared in terms of effect. How long, before brainscans become another cultural technique, along with Pavlovian Dogs and Psychoanalytic Couches or (to a lesser extent) Rational Choice/Game theories? How long, before brainscans are made fun of in the Simpsons?

For example:

He is helping Hollywood studios select trailers for new movies by scanning viewers as they watch a series of scenes to see which ones elicit the strongest reactions in the parts of the brain that are associated with reward expectations.

The way Hollywood has been behaving this last decade or two, I wouldn't be surprised if they forget about long term effect. They'll simply forget that a trailer that maximises reward expectations is worthless if the movie lets down the expectations. Great initial quota, steep drop off on account of word of mouth. A decent film that might have been ruined by a too great trailor lately is Reign of Fire, a movie where dragons re-awaken and take over the world. The trailer featured almost all the dragon-scenes, creating the impression of a CGI extravaganza. What you got was a pretty avarage post-apocalyptic movie that had more in common with Mad Max than with Jurrassic Park (IMO). I doubt they used brain-scans; but if they had, I guess, the marketing would have been more expensive, and the trailer would have been equally inefficient.

It appears that accountants want a safety net made of science while they're tight roping across their vision, not a workable method. The mindset revealed yet again by another new method is as frightening as ever. Luckily, competent manipulators are rare.

I hope...

[Scott Bakker]

Well, the fact is, marketing is very effective - which is precisely why corporations lay out billions for it. Most people assume the contrary because most people are convinced they're pretty much immune to it. It's the old 'autonomy default assumption.' Since we have difficulty seeing the myriad ways in which we're conditioned, we assume that we're unconditioned. The ideology of individualism, which crams out heads with all kinds of flattering nonsense, simply makes this worse.

What's so scary about this is that when marketers start treating us as brains, which is what they're doing, then they are out and out treating us like mechanisms. The principle alone is sobering.

The question of the added effectiveness is good one. The reason so many are so excited at this stage is that it allows researchers to 'cut out the middleman,' so to speak. First person subjective reports are notoriously unreliable. They're literally going to the source, trying to find the best ways to condition us. The tools they develop as a result will inevitably be clumsy at first, but they will just as inevitably become increasingly effective as they become increasingly sophisticated.

[Dawnstorm]

I don't question the effectivity of marketing, nor the added effectivity of brainscans in the gathering of more reliable data. What I'm wondering about is efficiency: Even if the older methods are not as effective as the new ones, they do have the advantage that they require less equipment, may be easier to implement, etc. You can ask thousands of people to mark various scales (1 = Gimmegimmegimme, 5 = Get lost) pretty easily. Try to find the perfect chocolate wrapper? Give them away for free with the alternatives and see whether one's gone first. It's harder to scan brains. Because of "eliminating the middleman" the method may be more effective and a smaller sample may be justified. The question is, however, is the added effectivity high enough to warrant the higher cost (time, money, public image etc.)?

The second question I have is: If marketers tend to not understand brain science, and brains scientists tend to not understand marketing, and communication between them is fraught with the same problems that they're trying to exploit, who does the "controlling"? Since the money flows from the powers that be to those who know, I wouldn't expect knowledge to win.

What's so scary about this is that when marketers start treating us as brains, which is what they're doing, then they are out and out treating us like mechanisms. The principle alone is sobering.

But I don't see that much of a difference to behaviourism, for example. To marketing we are mechanisms anyway. It's in the nature of all reductionist theories. Where do I go wrong? What am I missing?

[Scott Bakker]

The overall efficiency of society won't increase one whit, since marketing is transactional. Within marketing, the efficiencies will accrue as the accuracy of the information increases. Whole new theories of 'persuasion' will arise because of this. It's just a question of time, and there is no real limit to the possible effectiveness of their techniques.

Otherwise, point taken. They largely treat us as animals now, as something to be trained and conditioned. But at least they were confined to guesswork. In studies of all kinds, people misreport, questions are misunderstood, or problematically phrased in the first place, and so on.

[Dawnstorm]

Within marketing, the efficiencies will accrue as the accuracy of the information increases.

Please check the following (multiple answers possible; brainscan not available ;) ):

One may expect a rise in efficiency of marketing tools:

A) Because of more accurate generalised knowledge (theories) about decision making processes that allows for more accurate interpretations of *conventional* data (*conventional* = pre-brainscan methodologies, including pre-brainscan data)

B) Because of new methodologies that allow for more accurate data on specific questions (i.e. brain-scanning samples and generalising)

C) Other, please specifiy

I think that A) and B) have different economic implications. Personally, I think that "A: mastering the theory" will give more of an advantage, than "B: applying the methodology". That is because B will require a constant input of resources, whereas A would have a cumulative effect.

But at least they were confined to guesswork. In studies of all kinds, people misreport, questions are misunderstood, or problematically phrased in the first place, and so on.

See, that's exactly what makes me sceptic about better methods. A lot depends on research design. The most popular method in market research is still the questionnaire/questionnaire based interview. There are industry templates for those. Standardized scales, etc.

Go back a post and look closer at something I typed:

Try to find the perfect chocolate wrapper? Give them away for free with the alternatives and see whether one's gone first.

Not the best wording, really. What I meant is: offer the chockolate for free. Same product, alternate wrapping. Let the subjects pick them and see, whether there's one wrapping that's favoured, one that remains, etc.

The advantages? Motivation (you receive a free chocolate). No artificial awareness of the wrappers design. A real decision is made, one that emulates real-life decisions more closely. Disguise it as a promotional effort, so the subjects will be less likely aware of participating in a study...

Yet, often, marketers will prefer a questionnaire design: arrange wrappers 1 - 3 according to appeal: A) Best Wrapper _ B) Second Best Wrapper _ C) Worst wrapper _. A design as outlined above will usually gain more accurate data with respect to the appeal of chocolate wrappers, still questionnaires are more popular.

Why?

Because they're used to them? Because questionnaires are cheaper? Because they actually think that the method is superior?

If it's only a matter of being able to afford a better method, we might actually be in trouble. A few concerns: better information. Bulk of enterprises: avarage information. Consumers: mostly, no information.

But, as it is, I think there's more to it than that. The 'autonomy default assumption' applies to those who would condition as well as to those who are to be conditioned.

While working in a market research institute (menial labour, but I talked to interviewers and project managers on a regular basis) I joked that the real function of research projects is promotion of product/party to the public, or the legitimization of a pre-fabricated decision before the boss via third party validitation. And that a successful project manager in market research is one who wisely refrains from enlightening the customer about biased language etc. Because losing a customer to bad luck is commercially more viable than systematically annoying most of them by being tedious and a know-it-all.

So why am I not scared by the prospect of a new and better methodology? Because a good re-search design is hard to come by, but spotting faults is easy. I doubt the availability of brainscans will change that much.

[Scott Bakker]

How do you explain the effectiveness of existing marketing techniques? The fact, for instance, that Coca-Cola's branding has been so effective that for many of us, it actually changes the taste of the drink.

I share much of your institutional cynicism, D, but we really are talking about a difference in kind. I'm not so sure it's going to be a case of 'new tools'/'same old problems.' These new tools will utterly transform what marketing is and how it operates. The difference is as drastic as that between alchemy and chemistry.

Consider. Let's just call the way the brain lights up when we drink Coke (and I go through at least two cans a day) the 'optimal branding configuration,' or OBC. Now marketers have a real-world, quantifiable target. So they test market strategy after strategy, but rather than having focus groups fill out questionaires, which involves interpretation, then analyzing those questionaires, which involves more interpretation, they use neuro-imaging to correlate the way various brains respond to various strategies, using the OBC as their yardstick of effectiveness. As time goes on, the generally ineffective strategies will be isolated and discarded. So they start again, this time correlating variations of the surviving strategies, once again using the OBC as their yardstick. And again. And again. Each time their understanding will be a little more high resolution. Eventually they will develop taxonomies of various brain types, and of the strategies that best push their buttons. But where their previous taxonomies were scribbled across the interpretative quicksand, these will be something quite different. The results will be mathematically regimented in a way that psychological theories of 'consumer types' can never hope to be.

Like Kant said, any inquiry is scientific in proportion to its use of mathematics. With this, marketing becomes scientific in the full sense of the term. And as little things like thermonuclear explosions should remind us, science produces results. And this science has the explicit goal of 'bypassing the logical mind'!

Neuromarketing is literally the science of remote mind control.

The thing is, what we consumers think of the result is irrelevant, since it's our brains that they're interested in, and it's our brains that generate the behavioural outputs responsible for discretionary consumption.

[Hereford Eye]

With better technology comes better marketing scams. Have you ever seen more than a single image scan? How can a single image provide definitive information on a process? Even the Time article frames it's own reubuttal: which ones elicit the strongest reactions in the parts of the brain that are associated with reward expectations.
"In the parts of the brain" argues more than one part of the brain is involved in the decision making process. A scan showing the state of the process at any given instant must be inconclusive for all other instants. However, if I can show lots of images with these regions - not neurons - active, then I can claim that this must represent something and the something I think it represents is my product. Now, if you think this argument is valid, then I have some ocean front property just down the street from me and a whole bunch of MRIs...

[Scott Bakker]

If we were talking about a single scan I would agree with you HE. But we're talking of thousands upon thousands of scans over a period of years.

A scan showing the state of the process at any given instant must be inconclusive for all other instants. However, if I can show lots of images with these regions - not neurons - active, then I can claim that this must represent something and the something I think it represents is my product. Now, if you think this argument is valid, then I have some ocean front property just down the street from me and a whole bunch of MRIs...

I'm not sure what you mean here, so let me describe to you an actual experiment, and you tell me where the inferences go awry. (This is actually described in the beginning of the Time article I cherrypicked above.)

A neuroscientist named Read Montague at Baylor University imaged the brains of people drinking Coke and Pepsi. When they had no idea which brand they were drinking, there was no appreciable difference in the resulting images, but when they were showed Coca-Cola's logo, neural regions associated with pleasure expectation lit up in ways that Pepsi's did not - even when Pepsi drinkers were scanned. Montague's conclusion: that Coke's pervasive branding affected preferences in powerful ways.

Certainly, there's all kinds of issues involving the artificialness of the clinical context and so on, but there is a strong presumption in favour of Montague's conclusions - you have to admit. How else could the same cola light up the brains pleasure centers in two different ways?

The thing is, we know what the neural fingerprint of pleasure looks like. We're even beginning to learn what the neural fingerprint of deception looks like. And our understanding is becoming ever more high resolution. I'm not saying correlating these knowns with various marketing strategies will be instantaneous, or even easy, I'm just saying that they inevitably will be correlated, and that as a society, I think we have many reasons to be deeply concerned about it.

[Hereford Eye]

I'm probably ten years behind the times. The MRIs I am familiar with are single images of a single person's brain. To me, an MRI requires time, an irritatingly loud machine, and the necessity to remain immobile. A hundred thousand such images from a hundred thousand people would produce patterns for certain and consequently became standard diagnostic devices, particularly for predicting the onset of Alzheimer's, and other brain disorders.

Consequently, when I read of patterns taken while folk drink beverages or have sex (I've seen the headlines and plot summaries for articles indicating there are major differences between men and women's brain functioning during same), I get suspicious of the results. The brain, in my understanding, never has a static "this is pleasure" response. It is always a series of patterns happening continuously and continually. There is no end state, no particular picture that equals "pleasure." There is a process that equals pleasure. This makes analyzing brain functioning very much like weather forecasting, it is a statiscal operation that sometimes wins and sometimes loses.
Claiming that there is a particular picture of the same neurons firing and this indicates you like Coca-Cola is also to claim that you can identify and label individual neurons as they fire, this from among billions of neurons. Not to mention the adaptive ability of the brain to re-route functions when an area is damaged. I'm not certain that the most powerful Cray has the computing ability to support that function.
Till Susan Calvin gets around to building the positronic brain, taking samples from a hundred thousand people looking for presumed similar response patterns and then discovering common patterns does not surprise me. You will get what your search parameters are looking for. Nor does it surprise me that people are willing to assign qualitative values to those patterns. What surprises me is that people are willing to beleive that the patterns are predictive and willing to bet large sums of money on that predictive quality. As I thought earlier, better technology makes for better scams.