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A Shopping-Scanner Darkly
An anonymous reader writes "Using functional MRI scans, researchers have found which parts of the brain are active when people consider buying something and can predict whether or not they'll ultimately bite. One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash."
neuromarketing anybody?
It is really going to be hard to fit the MRI machine in the line at the supermarket.
rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash.
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stomping on a human's wallet -- forever."
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
We're loving the PKD reference titles today.
From the Article:
"One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash."
So, in short, they are considering if the item is worth the asking price? That actually sounds a lot like a rational thought process to me.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
Is today Philip K Dick http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_k_dick day or what? http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/ 03/1829258
Always back up, never back down. ---- Think you're cool 'cos your uid is prime? Take mine, modulo the one digit integers
Did I miss it? What's next... Slashdot story on immigration visas titled "Minority Import"?
I mean, when you're considering whether to buy something out of the ordinary, do you think "but I could spend this money on something else!" No, you think "but I'll have less/no pocket money left..." Maybe then the other things come to mind, but the first thought is that you'll have a smaller surplus. On some level, the first may be why you want more money, but it isn't the first thing you think of. This isn't some hidden mechanism of our brains; it's pretty intuitive.
Or am I seeing a pattern in today's story titles?
If the brain doesn't have to worry about forking over cash, that explains why free items are so ridiculously popular... even something that people would sign away their privacy or credit to get, like free t-shirt for credit card apps that you see all over any college campus.
stuff |
This is why the financial advice that you always pay cash, not by check or credit card, helps you keep within your budget. I seem to recall that people cut expenses by 30% or so once they started forking over 2-3 $20s for dinner with a friend instead of a little piece of plastic.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Clearly becomes impervious to pain when she takes my credit card and goes shopping for shoes.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Wow second Philip K. Dick reffrence in a row.
First Do Electric Sheep Dream of Civil Rights? and now A Shopping-Scanner Darkly? Next article we'll undoubtedly be called Flow My Oily Tears, the Android Said.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
Its easy: Create an RFID device that can read brainwaves. It can be powered by the RF in the store.
Could it be Best Buy?
I can see it now: the information they learn from this study ends up in their sales manuals on how to upsell customers and make them purchase more than what the needed/wanted.
Joking, of course... but it could still happen.
(From the Laws of Japanese Animation) Law of Inherent Combustibility -- Everything explodes. Everything.
We always knew Slashdot was full of Dicks. Today's titles prove it!
One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash.
Well, duh. That's why everyone's in credit card debt up to their eyeballs.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
Show them all sorts of products with insanely low prices (new 19" LCDs from $99, 300 GB hard drives from $30, etc, etc) and see their reaction. Obviously, it will be positive. Then show them the (obviously) marked up shipping costs ($100 for the monitor, $70 for the hard drive). Then they should react negatively. Continue with the pattern until you find a point at which the person no longer is interested in low prices and considers looking at higher priced items to see if the shipping cost is normal.
Certainly would have interesting results...
Can we? Can we?
The University of Chicago has recently installed a 9.4 Tesla superconducting magnet for fMRI brain research. They claim this MRI can resolve down to individual neurons, and can even watch them fire. A press report is available here.
ScuttleMonkey did you get PKD's work for christmas or something? ;-)
This is Slashdot. You have no girlfriend.
Marketers are getting addicted to functional MRIs. You can protect yourself by shielding yourself from functional MRI technology :-)
But that won't be effective forever.
Seriously, though, just comparison shop before you leave for the store.
Make a list of what you need (essentials), and a separate list of what you want (luxuries).
Good luck, and be careful out there.
FTFA The researchers found that when the participants were presented with the products, a subcortal brain region known as the nucleus accumbens that is associated with the anticipation of pleasure was activated. When the subjects were presented with prices that were excessive, two things happened: the brain region known as the insula was activated and a part of the brain associated with balancing gains versus losses -- the medial prefrontal cortex -- was deactivated. Would it be possible to determine the frequencies which cause these regions to respond? Imagine retailers beaming a 'Buy me! Buy me!' signal straight into your brain.
*gets his tinfoil hat ready for the next trip to the mall*
ACK NAK RST
I can see two likely results from this phenomenon. First, impulse purchases will be for a relatively low amount of money. People are less reluctant to part with a couple bucks. Secondly, larger purchases will be planned. The planning allows the purchaser to justify releasing the larger amount money.
I'd like to know if this extends to purchases made with others' money. Does a company purchase agent's brain operate the same way? Several jokes have been made in earlier threads about women buying shoes with the posters' credit card--does this effect still occur when the purchaser isn't personally responsible for the spending?
I've stated for years that when writing out checks for bills and such that it "physically pains me" to do so.
I'll have to show this article to my significant other as scientific proof that I'm not just being dramatic when I say that.
The scanners at the supermarket make enough errors when they're tallying my groceries. Why would I trust them to scan my brain?
. . . my tin-foil hat is looking better and better to you n00bs.
Hah!
What?
Not only that, you're going to zap every credit and debit card within an appreciable radius and I'm thinking you'll know pretty quickly if the guy in line next to you has a pacemaker or any other metallic implants.
OTOH, a lot of jewelry and loose change is going to fly to the center of the machine when you fire it up in the checkout line, so that may offset your costs somewhat.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
unless the RFID-like device can lower the price I'm not interested.
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I'm fairly certain this will be turned around and allow someone to broadcast a "buy" wave into a store. Now if we peeons could mass together and develop some sort of "pay wave" (trademarked by me) we could all be better off.
What if our whole Universe is just God's equivalent of an 8th grade project and he got a D-?
To be fair he did work a whole week on it, well there was that seventh day he rested.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Well, duh. Only economists actually think about opportunity cost. Everyone else considers spending vs. not spending. (Not to say they're wrong, since they're not, it's just that they have a tendency to over-estimate the depth of thought people put into economic decisions.)
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
"One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash." It doesn't seem the researchers actually tested whether buyers are weighing delayed gratification. All they demonstrated was that buyers consider whether the price for the item is fair; I'm sure that is what everyone does before they decide to purchase now, or something that will be purchased later. Also, is saying "here's 20 bucks for free, go and spend it in our elaborate experiement" really replicating the scenerio in which people make purchasing decisions? Don't we normally have to earn our money?
Who is qualified to rate God's work?
I tend to alamgamate my bills on one credit-card or bank account. I check it regularly, and watch that it stays under a certain amount with a two-week (pay) period. Yes, paying cash would work too, but one of the nice things about being connected is that I can constantly monitor my finances and adjust my spending accordingly, plus I gain travel points (others get cash-back etc) on my Visa, as well as various guarantees (backcharge is wonderful), that just don't come with cash. Of course I also always pay my balance on time. Always.
Yep, and in the words of Mr Strickland.
"You're a slacker! You remind me of your father when he went here. He was a slacker, too."
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex. I could pinch them."
Marvin the Martian
I'm not sure that is all of it for most people though. I have seen a dozen guys that all make between $60k and $160k, waiting for 15 minutes in line for a free tee shirt or pen.
"One of the main findings was that rather than weighing a choice between the pleasure of making a purchase and the delayed gratification of using the dough for something else, the brain is actually weighing between the pleasure of buying and the pain of forking over the cash."
I guess this also means that making paying easier would result in more sales. I've long suspected this is true. Can anyone confirm or deny?
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
shouldn't they perhaps focus a little less on the actual putting of items in baskets, and suchlike, and a little more focus on the actual forking over of cash?
Yeah, Home Depot's got that one nailed with their "self-checkout" debacle. They make you focus on the forking-over-of-cash so hard that it makes you want to leave your pile of crap at the register and go shop somewhere else.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
When I worked in sales, thats what I assumed was the case. When and if a person gave any indication the product wasn't worth the money, it was my job to convince them just the opposite. This would increase the relative value of the product to the customer making them more willing to purchase the product and earn me a big fat commission.
I can't help but thing that this is the whole point of money. By this I mean, money as oppose to barter. In the case of barter you explicitly have to worry what you are getting in exchange for your goods and what else you could get with these same goods (not all exchange are equivalent), while in the case of money you only need to worry about your overall purchasing power and how it would be reduced. Without this abstraction all exchange would be so much more complicated. If you thought about everything else we could buy with that money you could potentially make wiser choices, but the effort involve (transactional cost) would end up being prohibitive. So in a way, money is a simple abstraction that allows us reduce transactional cost at the expense of the optimal solution (I stress that this is at our discretion for each transaction with money). In way, this is how I interprete their finding.
Research of such prowess, of such searing insight, deserves every tax-paying dollar it can muster. We can only hope no one else somehow - oh, I don't know - builds a business around developing strategies to alleviate this apparent discomfort to our disadvantage.
Good work team, I think you're onto something. Whatever you do, don't stop now!
This is basic stuff! As far as I know it isn't in doubt.
Ah well, so much news, so little wisdom.
David
No, the best way would be to have half naked women sidle up to you and tell you they will go home with you only if you buy something expensive.
I, for one, would welcome our half naked female overlords.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Blade runner is the tittle of the film from which "Do androids dream of electronic sheep" (yeah the submitter mangled it a bit). SInce balde runner is not at all from PK dick you would not see it as a rightful title. OTOH the little black box, the terran odissey, solar lotery, valis etc... Are PK dick title. As is "We will remmember it for you wholesale !" (Total recall). And one another minority report, and paycheck.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
My wife finds it a pleasure to fork over my cash.