We know that slow, balky, and confusing websites aren’t a good thing. Traffic metrics show this, as does conversion data. Google, whom some think of as passively indexing the web, believes quick-loading pages are essential to a good user experience. Google is, in fact, actively trying to speed up websites (and keep their search users happy) by making page load time a ranking factor. (See Barry Schwartz’s article at Search Engine Land describing Google’s Matt Cutts commentary at Pubcon.)
Roger Dooley website website design search neuroscience user insights stressEvery year or so, some fuzzy-thinking critic reads an article about neuromarketing, becomes extremely agitated, and tries to raise the alarm about marketers turning consumers into mind-controlled zombies. The latest push of the neuro-panic button began with an article on a site called Truthout (fresh out of truth, perhaps?). Truthout seems to be a sort of conspiracy theory haven that seeks to use “the ever-expanding power of the Internet… to spread reliable information, peaceful thought and progressive ideas throughout the world.” Here’s their take on neuromarketing:
ethics moral panic neuromarketing neuroscience Roger DooleyTrivia question: Why were local phone numbers originally seven digits long? The answer is that in the early days of local phone service, researchers found that seven digit numbers were about as long as most people could remember without forgetting or making errors. (One oft-quoted study on the “seven” topic is The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on our Capacity for Processing Information by George A. Miller.)
Roger Dooley neuroscience management numbersDecades ago, Abraham Maslow proposed that humans had a hierarchy of needs, with food being at the most basic level of biological need and shelter one step above as part of a “safety” need. He may have been on the right track, according to new research led by Marcel Just at Carnegie Mellon University. The researchers exposed subjects to a series of nouns while monitoring their brain activity in an fMRI machine, and recorded which areas of the subjects brain were activated by each noun.
brain fMRI human needs neuroscience Roger Dooley wordsWe know that making ourselves smile or frown can actually influence our mood, and now it seems that the posture we assume can affect our confidence in our own thoughts. A study by Richard Petty, who apparently is not the NASCAR driver but rather a professor at Ohio State University, demostrated the effects of sitting up straight:
confidence neuroscience research Roger DooleyBook Review: How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Jonah Lehrer has been translating neuroscience into prose comprehensible by the lay reader for years, and How We Decide helps readers understand and even apply current research in the process of human decision-making.
book review decision making neuroscience Roger DooleySome neuroscientists have long been critical of fMRI brain scans, complaining that the technique’s colorful images may cause their data to be weighted beyond their merit. Now, two skeptical groups have published data suggesting that the way we interpret brain scans is downright fishy.
Roger Dooley brain scan neuroscience research fMRI neuromarketing reliabilityNeuroscientists have found patterns in brain activity that correlate with single digit numbers. They can literally watch your mind count.
Research into the physiology of how our noggins work has advanced mightily in recent years, especially when it comes to witnessing perception and memory. Technologies like fMRI -- an imaging tool that notes differences in water pressure, sort of -- have been heralded as objective ways to measure what happens in brains when things that were once believed to be solely subjective occurred in minds.
behaviour brain Jonathan Salem Baskin meaning neuroscience numbersThe last time you bought a product online, you probably went through a logical analysis of alternative products, prices, features, and so on. And perhaps you really did. Research shows, however, that we are actually far from rational when we buy stuff online - a fact that no doubt that comes as little suprise to Neuromarketing readers. In fact, the order of presentation can be a huge factor in our final decision.
buying behaviour decision making neuromarketing neuroscience Roger DooleyI don’t often get into neuro-parenting here, but I thought this particular research finding was interesting enough to single out. (I mentioned it in my Managing by Mistakes post last week, too.)
The short story is that a lot of what parents and teachers think about praising children and building self-esteem is dead wrong. Well-intended ego boosting can actually cause the child to perform more poorly in school. First, if you habitually praise your kids, you aren’t alone:
children education neuroscience Roger DooleyManagement gurus have often suggested that failure should be rewarded (if the individual was trying something new), or at least not punished. We all know the problems that develop when employees become fearful and conservative – creativity is stifled, and performance suffers.
brain failure management mistakes neuroscience Roger Dooley success
