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 available: that is to say, to entertain, to relax to prepare messages between What we sell to Coca-Cola, it's available human brain time "What Patrick Le Lay n.. 'Surely not imagine is how the 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 product was exactly the same. In an article published a few weeks ago by PLoS ONE, two German psychologists have questioned whether this effect "big brand" could be transposed into the world of power and influence tasting. To determine this, they developed the following experience: volunteer, lying in a MRI machine (Magnetic Resonance Imaging), would enjoy four gas sodas and note while we observe areas of the brain excited by this tasting. The protocol required that before their drink is injected into the mouth through a pipe, guinea pigs on a viewing screen for half a second, brand marketing said beverage: Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, River Cola and T-Cola. The first two are self-presentation. River Cola is the generic brand of a chain of German supermarkets while the T-Cola was introduced to the 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 in a non-identifiable 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 it reveals their pot-aux-Roses). Samples stamped Coca and Pepsi, the two brands have performed significantly better than the other two scores, a result not surprising. The most intriguing is in fact not there. It lies in what appeared to MRI. Tasting what was presented as little or no known brands has led to more activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, 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 indicator of whether the drink liked or did not like. Known for drinks, this area proved to be less active, probably because for having already tasted before or seeing the expensive advertising M. Le Lay, subjects already knew more or less what to expect. However, another part of the brain "lit up" more when tasting the famous brands: the central striatum, a region associated with reward and pleasure. If Coke and Pepsi were perceived as better than others (although, remember, the mixtures were the same), it's probably because the brain had expected them to be. The anticipation of the result by the effect of "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 this psychological domination that his mere mention handles in the brain, our perception of the product when it is consumed. . .
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