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.

Comments

Re:Other logos

[webmaster404]

Tux - made you grown a long beard and lose all your friends

I'm assuming your talking about Stallman in which case it would be the GNU not Tux. Rule Number 1 of geek humor: Be accurate.

It's a refleciton of pre-test scores

[Ieshan]

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.

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 .001, with Apple receiving
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 .001, with Apple receiving
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).

Re:It's a refleciton of pre-test scores

[Selanit]

I've RTF preprint too, and I'm not sure this is a fair criticism. You've misunderstood something - specifically, you write:

They chose the brands that they chose because Apple was rated as more creative a brand than IBM in pre-test

Which is incorrect. The researchers chose the brand before the pre-test because they themselves believed it to be associated with creativity. The purpose of the pre-test was to verify that the researchers were correct in believing that the test participants perceive the Apple brand as associated with creativity. They also tested the participants' associations of the IBM logo (which was the other logo they showed) to see whether it too was associated with creativity, and found that it was not.

The end goal of the study was to measure whether or not exposure to a familiar brand would cause people to exhibit characteristics associated with that brand. Having verified that the Apple brand was associated with creativity in the population they were studying, and that the IBM logo was not, they primed their participants by flashing a logo at them for 80 milliseconds as part of a video, then administered a standard psych test measuring creativity (the Unusual Uses test - it was first put together in 1958 and has been thoroughly validated since then). There were 341 participants (190 male, 151 female). Out of those:

• Half got the IBM logo, half got Apple.
• All participants were asked to complete a meaningless task (crossing out E's in a text); half of the participants were asked to do so before the Unusual Uses test, half after. That part was to measure whether the effect of the logo, if any, dissipated rapidly.

They also asked participants after they had completed the test whether they had noticed any images in the video shown beforehand; except for the 80 millisecond flash of logo, it consisted of abstract testing patterns. Not one single participant reported being aware of any recognizable images in the video, so it really was subliminal.

Their analysis of the results showed statistically significant differences between those shown IBM and those shown the Apple logo. Specifically, the people who got Apple produced a greater number of responses on the unusual uses test, which is a quantitative difference that nicely demonstrates their desire to be creative if not the actual creativity. The researchers also had judges independently rate the responses on a qualitative scale. The judges didn't know which logo the participants they were evaluation had seen. The researchers then did statistical analysis on the qualitative judgments, which showed that the judges consistently rated the responses of the Apple participants as more creative than those of the IBM participants.

Then they did it again, two more times in fact, with different brands and traits.

They had lots of checks and counter-checks built into it, and they used some fairly sophisticated statistical analysis on the results, including some analysis of variance (ANOVA) checks. As is common with psychological studies, the test participants were all undergraduates taking an intro to psych class. So the population was not particularly diverse in terms of age. But on the whole, it looks to me like a pretty well designed study.

Re:Yaa! CreativIty can be measured now!

[commodoresloat]

Indeed. This is not a scientific study, it's a bunch of marketers trying to "prove" that what they do matters. Journal of Consumer Research? Surely no conflict of interest there. In other news, a study backed by McDonald's proves that their food is actually good for you! Film at 11. The Journal of Consumer Research is a peer-reviewed academic journal put out by the University of Chicago Press. Some people can claim that it isn't "real science" or whatever, but the researchers certainly follow the scientific method and this study, like others published in the journal, has survived a peer review process overseen by its credentialed editorial staff.

Re:Other logos

[stefanlasiewski]

Rule Number 1 of geek humor: Be accurate.

Rule Number 0 of geek humor. Be funny!
Rule Number 0.1 of geek humor. Be ironic!
Rule Number 0.2 of geek humor. Be dry! ... ..
Rule Number 0.9999999... of geek humor. Be real!

"Mozart Effect"?

[sohare]

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.

Re:Yeah, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude. NSFW!

Link in parent is NSFW

[Von Helmet]

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.