14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) have recently completed a new scientific study on the different neural effects that various types of ads and commercials have. Such links have been only marginally understood before.
Psychologists and neurologists have known for a long time that different types of commercials appeal to different regions of the brain, but a clear investigation into the exact connections has thus far been lacking. The UCLA team covered this gap with the new work.
In order to get to their target audiences, advertisers usually go one of two ways. They may use logical persuasion (LP), with arguments about the tangible benefits their products have, or they may opt for non-rational influence (NI), such as for example spreading a woman on the advertised car.
These two main types of ads elicit different levels of neural activity in the brain, say experts from the UCLA and the George Washington University. The group has shown that the reactions depend on whether viewers are watching LP or NI arguments.
Details of the new research were published in the latest online issue of the esteemed Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics. UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior psychiatry professor Dr. Ian Cook lead the joint science team.
The researchers uncovered that logical persuasion-based arguments tended to activate regions of the brain that are usually involved in emotional processing and rational decision-making. When ads used non-rational influences, these areas show lower levels of activation.
“Watch your brain and watch your wallet. These results suggest that the lower levels of brain activity from ads employing NI images could lead to less behavioral inhibition, which could translate to less restraint when it comes to buying products depicted in the NI advertisements,” Cook explains.
In the new experiments, a study sample of 11 women and 13 men was shown a number of 24 ads from magazines and newspapers. At the same time, electrodes on their head were hooked to electroencephalography (EEG) machines, which recorded their neural electric activity.
“Because the results showed that in response to non-rational sensory inputs, activity was lower in areas of the brain that help us inhibit responses to stimuli, the findings support the conjecture that some advertisers wish to seduce, rather than persuade, consumers to buy their products,” the expert adds.
This investigation was made possible by funds secured from the International Consciousness Research Laboratories consortium.