Persuasion: Affect, decisions and
Neuromarketing
MS3305
Persuasion
1. Recapping Affect (MS2306)
2. The Techniques of
Neuromarketing
3. Independent Reading: Notes on
Gabriel Tarde’s Society of
Imitation
Affect and Deciding
Recap from MS2306
To Influence?
To Affect?
• What was affected?
• What was influenced?
• Scores go down with sound turned
off
The Atmosphere of Affect
Insubstantiality of
affect makes it
difficult to touch.
It has no
substance, but it
does have an
influence… a
force…
Affect, Communication and
the Senses
Regarded as
top of the
hierarchy of
the senses
Pheromones affect behavior or
physiology
Pheromones and Decisions
Firm adds smell to video games
See also Jussi Parikka: Insect Theory of Media: An Archaeology of Animals, Technology and Cultural Theory.
To be published by Minnesota University Press - Posthumanities Series
HCI
• The focusing of
– Attention
– Understanding
– Memory
• Cognitive
framework to
understand
decision making
processes
Emotional Design
• Still focusing on
decision-making
processes
• But moving
increasingly
towards
emotional
experiences
• Subconscious, beneath
conscious awareness
• Cognitive
• Affect = (visceral)
• Consciousness, arrives
late, after affect
– Rapid judgments,
determined by
environmental pressures
– Safety
– Danger
• Gut Feelings
• Queasy, uneasy, tense,
edgy, shocked, jolted,
– Muscles tighten
– Digestive system upset
• Jump out your skin = affect
• Info processing
• Interpretation
• Making sense of the
world
• Decision-making?
MS3305
Need to consider emotional design in
terms of the module debate
As part of consumer economy
The essays
Emotional Design &
Brands
• Norman’s Emotional
Design occurs ‘in the
world of products…’
• ‘Brands are all about
emotions’
– They ‘draw the consumer
towards the product’
– Emotional branding is about
building relationships with
users…
(Norman pp. 59-60)
New Media Producer/Consumer
Relation
Nigel Thrift (2008)
• Producers of
commodities and
brands establish
passionate, affective
relationship with
consumers (p. 245).
• The corporate
exploitation of
noncognitive and prediscursive realm of the
user
Thrift
Corporations are in
the business of
making
‘hormonal splashes
through
increasing contact
with consumers'
Attempts to
manipulate the
emotional mood
of consumers
Consumer
arousal
The ‘generation of
passions’
Sensory design of
commodities
The added value of
emotions and affects
Sensory Design
Scented laptops
Norman’s claim
“You cannot escape affect”
1.
All three levels interact
with each other
2.
Bottom up driven by
perception and gut
feelings/reactions
3.
Top down driven by
thought
4.
Everything has a
cognitive and affective
component
“You cannot escape affect”
•
Cognitive assigns
“meaning” –
culturally learned
responses
•
Affective assigns
“value” – changes
how we think
Persuasion and the New Media
Techniques of neuromarketing
– Shifts in cognitive
science/neuroscience
Watch this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBDvj2L7eb4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBLb3NZu1_4
Damasio speaks at the Neuromarketing World Forum 2014
http://viralcontagion.wordpress.com/2014/02/28/damasio-does-neuromarketing/
Nielson Neurofocus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_74vS5Zsis
White Paper on Persuasion
position paper for neuromarketing
– Persuasion and
Engagement
• Watchwords of
advertising
1. Consumers spend less time
in captive environments
2. Focus on grabbing the
ever-thinning slice of
consumer attention
3. Understanding the level to
which consumers are
engaged and persuaded
in the brief moments they
interact with the brand,
product, service, or show
–
–
–
–
–
–
• TV advertising
• Radio advertising
• Print advertising
• Billboards
• Live event advertising
• Internet banners and text
advertising
– • Interactive content
– • Product placement
Eye-Mind Hypothesis
vision, attention, conscious
thought
• Just & Carpenter’s “Eyemind” hypothesis (1976)
• ‘What a person is looking at
is assumed to indicate the
thought “on top of the
stack” of cognitive
processes’
• ‘Eye-movement recordings
can provide a dynamic trace
of where a person’s
attention is being directed
in relation to a visual
display'
[i] Poole, A. & Ball, L. J. (2005). Eye Tracking in HumanComputer Interaction and. Usability Research: Current
Status and Future Prospects. In Ghaoui, Claude (Ed.).
Encyclopedia of Human Computer Interaction. Idea
Group, pp. 211-219
Traces pathway between
what enters the eye and the
mind
•
Follows a glint in the eye of
the consumer… emits an
infrared light which reflects
onto the eye (a corneal
reflection)
•
Fixations records duration of
attention
•
Saccades measures movement
from one fixation to another
•
Scanpaths fixations + saccadic
movements
•
Heat Map
•
•
most attention = ‘hot’
less attention = ‘cold’
Feature of usability testing and
interface design
Heat Maps
Cognitive approach in HCI
• ‘If we know that
people are
distracted, often
involuntarily, how
is it possible to get
their attention
again without
allowing them to
miss the “window
of opportunity”’
(Preece et al p. 101)
Blending techniques like EEG
and Eye-Tracking
• However, since mid1990s, measuring what
is being attended to has
extended beyond
reasoned
consciousness
• Tapping into unconscious
responses
• Eye tracking +EEG =
• Attention +spontaneous
and unconscious
– attraction
– affective engagement
– emotional responses
Blending EEG with other
Physiological Measures
– Skin temperature
– Facial movement
– Eye-tracking
–
all measure the effects of the brain response
or the consumer’s expression of that
response
Methods
The preferred method
EEG
(Electroencephalogra
m(l k tr - n-s f -l -gr m)
Measures electrical
voltage in brain
activity directly linked
to the activity of
neurons
\
• A system developed around emerging ideas within
neurophysiology, neuroscience and cognitive science in
recent decades concerning the relation between
cognition and emotion
Watch James Bond Test
EEG + Eye Tracking Output.mov
Automatic emotion recognition software
Demo download
http://www.visual-recognition.nl/
"If It Feels Good Do It" : Using Neuromarketing to Go Beyond
Gabriel Tarde
Why Tarde?
Provides a persuasion theory of
affect, suggestibility and imitation
Two Sociologies (in a
nutshell)
Durkheim
Functionalism
•
•
•
Collective conscious
determines the individual
conscious
How the macro (society as a
“whole”) determines the micro
(micro-level)
Social facts exert influence on
individuals
Tarde
Microsociology
• Collective unconscious
• How point-to-point micro-level
relations or encounters
produce “social wholes”
• The whole as a manifestation of
the micro
Durkheim grasps the social
as distinct from psychology &
biology
• “… every time a
social phenomenon
is directly explained
by a psychological
phenomenon, we
may rest assured
that the explanation
is false.”
[Durkheim, RMS, 1894: 129]
Microsociology
• Tarde provides an…
‘understanding of
social ‘associations’,
of co-operation, with
no distinction made
between Nature and
Society’ (See Lazzarato, 2005 p. 17)
Tarde the Neuroscientist?
• “Nothing, however, is
less scientific than the
establishment of this
absolute separation, of
this abrupt break,
between the voluntary
and the involuntary,
between the conscious
and the unconscious. Do
we not pass by insensible
degrees from deliberate
volition to almost
mechanical habit?”
Preface to the Second Edition of The Laws of
Imitation xi
Tardean Persuasion Theory
• The magnetic pull of
points of
fascination,
intoxicating
glories and
celebrity
narratives
Tardean Persuasion Theory
Imitation-suggestibility
• Passions transmitted
through media, mostly
unawares
• Occurs at intersection
between
– Culture of attraction
– Biologically hardwired
inclination
– Both of which can be
manipulated
[i] Thrift, Nigel “Pass it On: Towards a Political Economy of Propensity”. A conference paper
delivered at the Social Science and Innovation Conference Royal Society of the Arts
(RSA), London. Paper archived on the conference website at
http://www.aimresearch.org/uploads/File/Presentations/2009/FEB/NIGEL%20THRIF
T%20PAPER.pdf (accessed August 2009). p. 2
Mirror neuron hypothesis
We are
connected by
brain circuitry
that ‘fire[s]
when we either
perform a given
action or see
someone else
perform the
same action’
(Lakeoff p. 39)
Tina Gonsalves
Mirror Neurons = Empathy
• The mirror neuron
hypothesis
• Adds theoretical support
to explanations of how
empathy might work,
particularly in terms of
the sharing of feelings,
compassion, admiration
and even mind reading.
Lakeoff p. 39.
[
• ‘…a plausible
neurophysiological
explanation for the
means by which the
existence of the other is
etched into the brain so
that we are able to intuit
what the other is
thinking – we are able to
‘mindread’ - not only
because we see others’
emotions but because we
share them’
Thrift Pass it On p. 8.
Stanley Milgram on obedience, authority and
imitation
Further reading
persuasion profiling
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/04/st_essay_persuasion_prof
iling/
TRYING (week six)
• ‘Create simulations and prototypes
to help empathize with people and
to evaluate proposed designs.’
Modes of users trying out
1.
2.
3.
4.
EMPATHY TOOLS
SCENARIOS
NEXT YEAR’S HEADLINES
INFORMANCE
EMPATHY TOOLS
EMPATHY TOOLS
• Use tools like clouded glasses and
weighted gloves to experience
processes as though you yourself have
the abilities of different users.
• This is an easy way to prompt an
empathic understanding for users with
disabilities or special conditions.
Uses?
• Example Designers wore gloves to
help them evaluate the suitability
of cords and buttons for a home
health monitor designed for people
with reduced dexterity and tactile
sensation.
SCENARIOS
http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/scenarios.htm
SCENARIOS
• Illustrate a character-rich storyline
describing the context of use for a
product or service.
• This process helps to communicate
and test the essence of a design
idea within its probable context of
use. It is especially useful for the
evaluation of service concepts
Uses?
• Example Designing a community
Web site, the team drew up
scenarios to highlight the ways
particular design ideas served
different user needs.
NEXT YEAR’S HEADLINES
NEXT YEAR’S HEADLINES
• Invite employees to project their
company into the future, identifying
how they want to develop and sustain
customer relations.
• Based on customer-focused research,
these predictions can help to define
which design issues to pursue for
development.
Uses?
• Example While designing an
Intranet site for information
technologists, the team prompted
the client to define and clarify their
business targets for immediate
and future launches.
INFORMANCE
INFORMANCE
• Act out an “informative
performance” scenario by roleplaying insights or behaviours that
you have witnessed or researched.
• This is a good way to communicate
an insight and build a shared
understanding of a concept and its
implications.
Uses?
• Example A performance about a
story of mobile communications
shows the distress of a frustrated
user.
Task
•
Comparing self
reporting with
biometric output
(EEG and GSR)
•
http://static.gui
m.co.uk/interact
ivestore/2013/3
/26/136431175
8117/422623/bi
ntmp/index.html