by: Roger Dooley
One of the enduring fictions of neuromarketing is that there is a “buy button” in the brain. Marketers salivate at the thought, and consumer groups fear it. (Some might say that marketers have been pushing that button with seductive products and advertisements long before neuroscience was a recognized discipline!) In reality, though, decision making is far too complex a process to be localized to a single spot in the brain or a single neurological process that can be activated by a clever pitch. Plus, we are all different enough that whatever makes you buy something wouldn’t work well for me. Interestingly, though, scientists have located what appears to be a “stop” button that is responsible for impulse control.
Scientific American describes the study as, “the first neuroscientific evidence that people have self-control or the ability to reverse gears mid-action” in Impulse Stopping: When the Mind Exercises ‘Free Won’t’. The authors of the study hope that their work could lead to better understanding of conditions like attention deficit disorder (ADD) and various addictions. They plan to follow their fMRI work with more work using electroencephalography (EEG); this will let the researchers to observe communication between different parts of the brain. Marketers, meanwhile, will be trying to figure out how NOT to push this particular button.
Original post: http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/dont-buy-button-located-in-brain.htm
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