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The Reality Distortion Field Is Real
TimeZone writes "Apparently, even subliminal exposure to the Apple logo can make you 'think different.' Researchers at Duke University subjected participants to subliminal images of the iconic Apple and IBM logos (during what subjects thought was a visual acuity test), and those who were shown the Apple logo generated more creative ideas after the test than did those who were shown the IBM logo. In a second test, subjects exposed to the Disney logo acted more honestly than those who saw an E! Channel logo." Here's a preprint of the paper (PDF) due for publication in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Nobody ever got fired after staring at the IBM logo.
What does the "Microsoft" logo do to you (down there)?
...and the Microsoft logo caused test subjects to experience extreme confusion and frustration.
Microsoft - made you more likely to be cruel to little animals
Tux - made you grown a long beard and lose all your friends
Novell - made you betray your friends
Democrat donkey - made you find new ways to destroy yourself
Republican elephant - made you question the value of an education
What is next ?
"Judge, I crashed my car because I stared at a Ferrari logo for too long." ?
Or maybe this study is a steaming pile of platypus dung. See that there? Platypus Dung? that's creativity baby!
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
I need to use this new research with the Nike logo so I can run faster! And then the Chiquita bananas logo so I don't ever have to eat! Then the Boeing logo so I can fly! I'm going to be awesome! Thank you subliminal research.
Ok now I need to look at the Miller Lite logo.
When viewing the Apple logo I am immersed in a pure white light...providing me with a mental blank canvas ripe for unbridled creativity whereas with the IBM logo all I get is blue...blue...blu...hey, is that pinstripe?
I see my apple logo on my laptop all the time. People always tell me I'm full of shit, but I always explain that I'm full of great ideas. Now I have proof that I'm the one that's right, and they're full of shit.
The RDF emanates from The Steve, not the Apple logo. Unless, of course, The Steve laid hands upon the device bearing the logo. It's all right in here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field
This is the NSA, we're gonna geet U h@x0r5! Also, what is a h@x0r5?
Hence the reason all the new Mac users immediately go out and buy extra big designer tables for their lounges and a few African tribal relics to display in their hallways.
It also makes them caffeine-addicted hermits since I usually see solitary Mac users sat in the darkest corners of Starbucks with a large chocca-flocca-socca-moccachino in front of them. And I know they're Mac users because no matter where I sit, they always make sure I can see the little logo.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Exactly. "Touchy Feely" != "More Creative".
has what reaction?
Well, until Steve Jobs says so. ;-)
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Those who saw the Intel logo developed a rash.
Those who saw the Coca Cola logo were prone to use AmEx.
Those who saw the Pepsi logo afterwards liked beef better than those who ate Aspirin during the tests.
And not least.. those who saw the Bear Sterns logo broke down in tears.
The significance of this is invaluable. It is also mostly incomprehensible.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/07/12
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
We've established that the reality distortion field is in fact correct (TFA), and that it self-evidently (look at Apple's recent sales) is transmitted as a meme throughout technological society. We know that the human condition is regulated by culture - that the human brain is evolving to cope with the phenomenal rate-of-change-of-culture it is being exposed to. In doing so, it must also cope with (adapt to) this reality distortion field created by Apple.
Steve Jobs is screwing with your mind, people. And your children's nascent minds too. Be afraid (of non-shiny things). Be very afraid (of anything not cool).
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
More apple wankery.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Apple...Microsoft ...Oh baby!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
By extrapolating these results, I assume that those shown a Windows logo got into their car, drove extremely slowly while telling those behind them to "please wait," and then crashed into a telephone pole due to a driver problem.
That certain logo made you want to claim other people's stuff as yours, but refuse to show the receipt because it's so damn obvious. And then file for bankrupcy.
of course the study was finished when one of the researchers "accidently" slipped the viagra logo into the projector. the rest, as they say, is history and nobody ever mentioned that study or the brick ever again.
Staring at Microsoft logo will create an irresistible urge to throw a chair at it.
Screaming "DEVELOPERS!" is known to occasionally happen too!
Apple is the new Microsoft, Microsoft is the new IBM.
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Say WHAT ?
This is humour - lay off the "insightful" mods, will you please ? It's starting to erode my confidence in my fellow man...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
certain words can also make you "think differently". It seems obvious to me the word "slashdot" fosters in test subjects a need to spout the lamest jokes humanly possible. Q. How many MS logo "jokes" did we need in response to this article? A. I like turtles Retards...
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
Does staring at this comment predispose /. readers to rate it up?
The research is neat, but essentially what they're showing is that they can validate pre-test measures of "creativity" and "honesty" using a priming technique.
.001, with Apple receiving
.001, with Apple receiving
They chose the brands that they chose because Apple was rated as more creative a brand than IBM in pre-test:
"As predicted, there was a significant difference in the extent to
which Apple and IBM were perceived to be creative, t(23) = -4.91, p
higher ratings (M = 7.62, SD = 1.23) than IBM (M = 4.17, SD = 2.12). Thus, pilot tests confirmed that in
our college sample, Apple is believed to be more creative than is IBM. IBM, it is important to note, is
not seen as particularly creative or uncreative; it is rated at approximately the mid-point of the scale."
And because Disney is rated as being more "honest" than E!:
"As predicted, there was a significant difference in the extent to
which Apple and IBM were perceived to be creative, t(23) = -4.91, p
higher ratings (M = 7.62, SD = 1.23) than IBM (M = 4.17, SD = 2.12). Thus, pilot tests confirmed that in
our college sample, Apple is believed to be more creative than is IBM. IBM, it is important to note, is
not seen as particularly creative or uncreative; it is rated at approximately the mid-point of the scale."
It's not showing that people subliminally exposed to the Apple logo - regardless of prior beliefs - will be spontaneously more creative. It's showing that people spontaneously exposed to things that they (at least, a similar sample) feel reflect creativity will prime, behaviorally, creativity.
It doesn't mean that people who work with Apple are more productive, or that people need to buy Apple to be creative. It's a neat implementation of priming on future behavior, but it's really showing that specific brands are associated with specific traits (and that those specific traits prime actions).
That explains why I can't get with any _original_ idea when I'm eating apples!
What I think you're saying is that people will themselves reflect what they believe the logo reflects when they subliminally see the logo. The association becomes a suggestion. You can't control the association (and therefore cannot control the suggestion) but what can be controlled is how blurred the line is between the two. Would that be correct?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
An abstract shape is more inspiring than letters that are seen 1000s of times a day. Next they'll study whether Apple's icon is more iconic.
Seriously, it's in the April issue.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
Participants subliminally viewing a Budweiser logo were able to crush roughly twice as many beer cans against their foreheads compared to those who viewed a Colt 45 logo. On the other hand, those viewing the Colt 45 logo were shown to be 65% more obnoxious when panhandling.
They don't mention whether exps 2 and 3 were done on different days, but given that they did it for expt 1, they probably did for 2 and 3 too.
Was some other interpretation suggested?
-fred
Sign #11 of Slashdot overdose: You see the phrase 'moderate Republican' and you wonder if that would be a +1 or a -1.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
What will this do for interrogation rooms? Will they have a table, a lamp, and mickey mouse wall paper?
Nuclear engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Had to be burned, then buried, then dug up after a week and the ashes soaked in agua regia and scattered over a disused nuclear test site.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
As a scientist familiar with subliminal perception and the power of brands, I'd like to say: Bunk. Unless You Make Equal All Prior Observations, "Research" Simply Can't Harbor Effects.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
That must be why I'm so confused when I'm computing... My laptop is a Thinkpad T40, and well... The picture says it all...
http://www.wpyouth.com/IMG_03972.jpg
This reminds me a bit of the so-called Mozart effect claimed by Shaw and Rauscher that has been accepted as true by the general public. Their studies were not reproduced and had pretty shoddy methodology. Consult http://skepdic.com/mozart.html.
Apple is loaded with symbolism, the logo is an iconic masterpiece of artwork.
International Business Machine, Microsoft sounds small minded, they got nothing beyond some industrial bad taste in your mouth. There is nothing there to touch your mind and imagination.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that the visual acuity of Apple fanbois might be adversely affected.
Have gnu, will travel.
Sure... if you know about it as much as a pedestrian about string theory.
This is exactly what I told the Judge. The kid came past with a Yogi Bear T-shirt on. I felt compelled to shit in the woods. Mlud.
I have to say that geek writing is vastly superior to academic writing. Academia teaches methods that are astonishingly unclear. Sir Humphrey would be proud of how papers are written. Your writing, as is almost always the case with Slashdot posters who take the time to write serious stuff, is vastly superior in style. (This is one reason I'm surprised geeks don't often band up and do science journalism. They could do so with vastly greater accuracy than science journalists currently do, and with vastly superior presentation than academics ever manage.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
My grandmother, mother, and sister are all psychology majors. That's three generations of bullshit I grew up with. My sister was probably the worst. Being in college when I was going through middle school and high school, she was always applying whatever the lesson of the day was to me. The more clinical aspects of it are alright, but shit like this is 100% grade A bullshit.
Oh, and String Theory is bullshit so far too, and I know quite a bit about that.
I just stared at the Slashdot logo......
Microsoft is teh sux0r!
first post!
I only I had a beowulf cluster of Apple logos on IBM machines......
Linux is better than tea-bagging Master Chief!
Ron Paul!!!!!!!
Cowboy Neal!!!!
Make it stop!!!! Please for the love of FSM make it STOP!!!!!!
So why aren't U people hitting BUY when U see AAPL?
On the other hand, those exposed to the E! logo were 200% more catty!
Was this posted two weeks early?
Ignorance is the root of all evil.
This is so bullshit. Who comes up with these "studies"?
I wish I had a nice fat education fund so I could rock out academia with ridiculous studies that pander to the lowest common denominator.
Well done, how about a study on how so called researchers and scientists spend their time.
Why wasn't this published in the Journal of Irreproducible Results? Why?
From what I recall subliminal messaging was dismissed as bunk a decade ago or earlier.
Also...Disney...
honest?...come on....
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
To be fair, the ones who saw the Apple logo were all Macs, and the ones who saw the IBM logo were all PCs.
Disney made people more honest? Buhwahahahaha. That made my day.
Did the Disney logo cause any increase in negative emotions towards jews and blacks?
Psychology studies opinions of psychologists.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Does not follow. The map is not the territory. Assuming that the fundamental research is correct, it's the established marketing that created the associations they're measuring. They might as well suggest that people lose weight by moving to the moon - they're confusing the technique they're using to measure an effect with the effect itself.
My first impression before RTFA is that, if this is true, then we have a viable argument for why our constant exposure to advertising is bad. Ive always thought that leaving the TV on 24/7 is to your brain what drinking toilet water is to your body: You cant necessarily see the germs that youre ingesting, but at some point theyre going to have a negative effect on you.
Of course, it doesnt end at your TV: Newspapers, magazines, billboards-- the germs are everywhere.
Its there to create awareness, and ad exec would say; or, maybe a more blunt ad exec would say, Its there to make you decide to buy the product.
But, I think this shows that it does a lot more than that. And we should be concerned, and ask ourselves what were allowing our brains to ingest at any given time. And, what can we do about it?
Modding me up might be a good idea... Good job I opened that in a tab and was able to figure a way to close it again without showing everyone in the office what I think that was.
this just conditioning? Like we see the Apple apple, many times coupled with the phrase "Think Different" or in articles and ads suggesting it is super creative. And then we see the Apple apple and just unconsciously think "hey, be creative!"
I would love to see how this test would vary by nationality. Apples big, recent success, the iphone, has only been a big success, as far as i know, in the US.
Sometimes brands do make you feel better or feel second class.
If you know you have the best rated product or have "cool" clothes you feel more confident.
Nobody ever says IBM is cool and that IBM is interesting, it symbolises dull business computers to most people. Their products are very sober and drab.
So what happens when the Apple Reality Distortion Field meets the Pauli Effect?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Yeah, and water crystallize different depending your mood while you freeze it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto
I wonder how can you make any statistics on 25 people?!?
> There's only one thing that differentiates man from the animals - we're not afraid of vacuum cleaners.
Wrong, even here. My college roommate once ran screaming from our dorm room when another friend said, "Look, the vacuum cleaner is attacking you," and lunged at my roommate with the intake wand. Of course, said roommate was dropping acid, at the time, and that may have altered his perception and reactions a tad.
WWWWW.
Go read the preprint and compare the differences between Apple and IBM results with the standard deviation measured in scores. In Experiment 1, with no delay, the difference is 1.6 and the standard deviation is 3.3. This tells those of us who work with statistics that the result isn't meaningful, even ignoring the systematic errors mentioned in a previous post (Apple and IBM exposures occuring on different days!!). The same sort of statistical and dseign tomfoolery carries on throughout the article. I suppose publishing in psychology is a lot easier than in physics.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Major design flaw or some conspiracy theory at work?
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel