14 DAY TRIAL // Money rules the world.
And this happens even if you are conscious of it or not.
A new research at the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging at the University College London has revealed that subliminal rewards can push us to work harder, even if we are unaware of the stake. "As far as we know, this is the first study looking at [subliminal perception] in relation to motivation," said study team member Chris Frith of the Wellcome Trust Center for Neuroimaging at the University College London.
The team led by Mathias Pessiglione made its approach on a group of 18 volunteers, 9 women and 9 men, which were informed that the harder they squeezed a hand grip, the more money they would get.
Before the start of the test, the subjects watched the image of a one-cent coin or one English pound (about $2) flash onto a computer screen for 17, 50 or 100 milliseconds. While the 17 and 50 milliseconds induced subliminal cues, 100 milliseconds produced a conscious image of the coins.
The team assessed brain activity and skin conductance response, which signals the individual level of excitement. While subjected to unconscious and conscious stimuli, the subjects gripped with much more force when the visual stakes were the highest.
The brain activity was much higher in the zone of the ventral pallidum for the one-pound images. The skin conductance rose when the money value was higher, but only in the case of the 100- and 50-millisecond flashes, but even so the team blames the lack of response for 17-millisecond flashes on an improper statistical method employed for this research.
The researchers believe that the ventral pallidum, the center of reward-related processes, activates the cortical motor zones in connection with the value of the reward.
These impulses are at an unconscious level. "It's further evidence that a great deal of what our brains do happens subliminally. Being unaware of your actions has its benefits. It's an advantage to do lots of things using the subliminal perception because it's much faster. As soon as you have to start thinking about things everything is slowed down," said Frith.