--- The Fool <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > <<http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/media/story.jsp?story=455650>> > > Selling you a new past > > You've eaten a chocolate bar and you didn't really > like it. Can a > commercial afterwards persuade you that you did? > 'Memory morphing' could > be a powerful weapon for advertisers... <snip>
> Earlier this year, other American psychologists > announced research > findings to the American Association for the > Advancement of Science, > showing the ease with which false memories can be > implanted in people's > minds. In a test by the cognitive psychologist > Kathryn Braun-LaTour, a > colleague of Zaltman's, participants were served an > unpleasant-tasting > orange drink spiked with salt and vinegar. They were > then shown adverts > suggesting the drink was refreshing. Sure enough, > many of the > participants later reported that they had found the > drink refreshing. <snip> There's no question that advertising can encourage you to do/buy new things, or that memories can be influenced/altered by subsequent events; but if an experience is unpleasant enough, *no* ad in the world will make you repeat the mistake! Frex: You and two friends, having salivated for months over the Carl's Jr(TM) ads with the dripping catsup (or ketchup if you prefer) and all, go to one and, after eager perusal of the menu, order 3 different 'main' items. Each is tasteless and unappetizing (everyone has a bite at least of each item), and the fries are pathetic limp things, and the sodas are watered-down (I think they really were, but maybe not)... You subsequently never are made hungry by their ads, and you refuse to *ever* buy anything from them again. As a child you _adored_ Twinkies(TM), having them on picnics and backyard cookouts, delighting in the cream filling and cake shell, as did your sibs and little friends. As an adult you nostalgically (sp?) take one at a friend's family party - and have to spit out your mouthful of chemical foam with the Nerf(TM)-like gaggingly-sweet coating into a napkin; you make the unfortunate choice of palate-cleanser a paper cup of the nearest potable fluid, which happens to be strawberry Kool-Aid(TM) -- which you bravely swallow despite the nastiness of artificial berry flavor and sweetener. You gratefully chew on a piece of cauliflower (which you neither buy at the grocery nor choose at a restaurant) to get the disgusting conglomeration of artificial "flavors" out of your poor abused taste buds... Let us not go over the recent painful viewing of a couple of episodes of The Lone Ranger(TM), a childhood hero...(unlike Batman(TM) which so clearly laughed at itself, and is still funny)...and I think I'll avoid seeing any Daniel Boone(TM) episodes too, since I rather strongly suspect that it too would be woefully pathetic compared to the 'man' I remember. What A Dream-Comer-Truer Was He Maru ;) __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search http://shopping.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
