Hilke Plassmann

Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness

Despite the importance and pervasiveness of marketing, almost nothing is known about the neural mechanisms through which it affects decisions made by individuals. We propose that marketing actions, such as changes in the price of a product, can affect neural representations of experienced pleasantness. We tested this hypothesis by scanning human subjects using functional MRI while they tasted wines that, contrary to reality, they believed to be different and sold at different prices. Our results show that increasing the price of a wine increases subjective reports of flavor pleasantness as well as blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in medial orbitofrontal cortex, an area that is widely thought to encode for experienced pleasantness during experiential tasks. The paper provides evidence for the ability of marketing actions to modulate neural correlates of experienced pleasantness and for the mechanisms through which the effect operates.

Appetitive and Aversive Goal Values Are Encoded in the Medial Orbitofrontal Cortex at the Time of Decision Making

An essential feature of choice is the assignment of goal values (GVs) to the different options under consideration at the time of decision making. This computation is done when choosing among appetitive and aversive items. Several groups have studied the location of GV computations for appetitive stimuli, but the problem of valuation in aversive contexts at the time of decision making has been ignored. Thus, although dissociations between appetitive and aversive components of value signals have been shown in other domains such as anticipatory and outcome values, it is not known whether appetitive and aversive GVs are computed in similar brain regions or in separate ones. We investigated this question using two different functional magnetic resonance imaging studies while human subjects placed real bids in an economic auction for the right to eat/avoid eating liked/disliked foods. We found that activity in a common area of the medial orbitofrontal cortex and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex correlated with both appetitive and aversive GVs. These findings suggest that these regions might form part of a common network.

Dissociating Valuation and Saliency Signals during Decision-Making

There is a growing consensus that the brain computes value and saliency-like signals at the time of decision-making. Value signals are essential for making choices. Saliency signals are related to motivation, attention, and arousal. Unfortunately, an unequivocal characterization of the areas involved in these 2 distinct sets of processes is made difficult by the fact that, in most experiments, both types of signals are highly correlated. We dissociated value and saliency signals using a novel human functional magnetic resonance imaging decision-making task. Activity in the medial orbitofrontal, rostral anterior cingulate, and posterior cingulate cortices was modulated by value but not saliency. The opposite was true for dorsal anterior cingulate, supplementary motor area, insula, and the precentral and fusiform gyri. Only the ventral striatum and the cuneus were modulated by both value and saliency.

Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex decreases valuations during food choices.

Several studies have found decision‐making‐related value signals in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, it is unknown whether the DLPFC plays a causal role in decision‐making, or whether it implements computations that are correlated with valuations, but that do not participate in the valuation process itself. We addressed this question by using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) while subjects were involved in an economic valuation task involving the consumption of real foods. We found that, as compared with a control condition, application of rTMS to the right DLPFC caused a decrease in the values assigned to the stimuli. The results are consistent with the possibility that the DLPFC plays a causal role in the computation of values at the time of choice.

Cognitive Regulation during Decision Making Shifts Behavioral Control between Ventromedial and Dorsolateral Prefrontal Value Systems

Cognitive regulation is often used to influence behavioral outcomes. However, the computational and neurobiological mechanisms by which it affects behavior remain unknown. We studied this issue using an fMRI task in which human participants used cognitive regulation to upregulate and downregulate their cravings for foods at the time of choice. We found that activity in both ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) correlated with value. We also found evidence that two distinct regulatory mechanisms were at work: value modulation, which operates by changing the values assigned to foods in vmPFC and dlPFC at the time of choice, and behavioral control modulation, which operates by changing the relative influence of the vmPFC and dlPFC value signals on the action selection process used to make choices. In particular, during downregulation, activation decreased in the value-sensitive region of dlPFC (indicating value modulation) but not in vmPFC, and the relative contribution of the two value signals to behavior shifted toward the dlPFC (indicating behavioral control modulation). The opposite pattern was observed during upregulation: activation increased in vmPFC but not dlPFC, and the relative contribution to behavior shifted toward the vmPFC. Finally, ventrolateral PFC and posterior parietal cortex were more active during both upregulation and downregulation, and were functionally connected with vmPFC and dlPFC during cognitive regulation, which suggests that they help to implement the changes to the decision-making circuitry generated by cognitive regulation.

What can advertisers learn from neuroscience

The insights of neuroscience are only just becoming available for the study of advertising. This paper seeks to consolidate the contribution so far. Advertising works in two ways: it may trigger some immediate response and/or change the respondent’s brand memories in some way that influences later behaviour. This paper addresses the latter process. In other words, advertising first changes brand equity, and brand equity, in turn, later affects behaviour. The paper outlines the four main techniques of functional brain imaging and reported research in this area, its limitations and the opportunities for new research. Whether the contribution to date is seen as modest or substantive is a lesser question than what neuroscience could do for our longer-term understanding of how advertising works. Neuroscientists and advertisers need to work together so that research investigates how ads are processed, how brand memories are stored and the subsequent behaviour effects relative to the intentions of the advertisers.

Consumer Neuroscience: Applications, Challenges, and Possible Solutions

The first decade of consumer neuroscience research has produced groundbreaking work in identifying the basic neural processes underlying human judgment and decision making, with the majority of such studies published in neuroscience journals and influencing models of brain function. Yet for the field of consumer neuroscience to thrive in the next decade, the current emphasis on basic science research must be extended into marketing theory and practice. The authors suggest five concrete ways that neuroscientific methods can be fruitfully applied to marketing. They then outline three fundamental challenges facing consumer neuroscientists and offer potential solutions for addressing them. The authors conclude by describing how consumer neuroscience can become an important complement to research and practice in marketing.

How Neuroscience Can Inform Consumer Research

Recently, a rapidly growing approach within consumer research has developed under the label of ldquoconsumer neuroscience.rdquo Its goal is to use insights and methods from neuroscience to enhance the understanding of consumer behavior. In this paper we aim to provide an overview of questions of interest to consumer researchers, to present initial research findings, and to outline potential implications for consumer research. In order to do so, we first discuss the term ldquoconsumer neurosciencerdquo and give a brief description of recently discussed issues in consumer research. We then provide a review and short description of initial empirical evidence from past studies in consumer neuroscience. Next, we present an example of how consumer research or, more specifically, customer loyalty research, may benefit from the consumer neuroscience approach. The paper concludes with a discussion of potential implications and suggestions for future research in the nascent field of consumer neuroscience.

Anterior cingulate reflects susceptibility to framing during attractiveness evaluation

Human cognitive decisions can be strongly susceptible to the manner in which options are presented (‘framing effect’). Here we investigated the neural basis of response adjustments induced by changing frames during intuitive decisions. Evidence exists that the anterior cingulate cortex plays a general role in behavioral adjustments. We hypothesized, therefore, that the anterior cingulate cortex is also involved in the ‘framing effect’. Our hypothesis was tested by using a binary attractiveness judgment task (‘liking’ versus ‘nonliking’) during functional magnetic resonance imaging. We found that the framing-related anterior cingulate cortex activity predicted how strongly susceptible an individual was to a biased response. Our results support the hypothesis that paralimbic processes are crucial for predicting an individuals susceptibility to framing.

Individual Differences in Marketing Placebo Effects: Evidence from Brain Imaging and Behavioral Experiments

A wealth of research has explored whether marketing-based expectancies such as price and brand quality beliefs influence the consumption experience and subsequent behavior, but almost no research has examined individual differences in “marketing placebo effects.” In this article, the authors suggest three moderators of the effect of marketing-based expectancies on the behavioral and neural measures of the consumption experience, based on previous findings from neuroscientific literature investigating traditional clinical pain placebo effects. They use a novel automated structural brain imaging approach to determine individual differences and combine this approach with traditional behavioral experiments. The findings show that consumers high in reward seeking, low in somatosensory awareness, and high in need for cognition are more responsive to marketing placebo effects.