Today I read this article from cnet.com.au about companies using emotion sensing technology to better design ads (and video games) to appeal to people. The idea is, they gauge people's automatic, uncontrollable reactions as they happen rather than waiting on what focus groups choose to report, thereby improving their ability to manipulate the audience into having a favourable response.
"Consumer advertising largely doesn't shape your subconscious behaviour," said Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. "Part of the problem is that we haven't figured out how to study the quick, unconscious emotional responses to the advertisements, and this kind of technology may give us clue."
This unsettles me. Simply, I do not like the idea that people will not be given the opportunity to make an honest assessment of what is on offer before purchasing. I do suppose word of mouth will have a mitigating effect if the product is truly rubbish, but the amount of psychology that already goes into advertising worries me as it is.
I am less sure how I feel about this kind of technology influencing video game design. I suppose it could create games of immense short term appeal but, in the long term, perhaps it would be as much up in the air as any other expensively developed game. And I am not sure which the company would prefer, since if people did go off their game after a while they could always sell them another.
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soltice reminded me there is a wide variety of brains we call human and many could well have differing reactions. So it is unlikely such techniques would yield universally effective advertising, at least for a while to come. I wonder what it would yield?
"Consumer advertising largely doesn't shape your subconscious behaviour," said Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley. "Part of the problem is that we haven't figured out how to study the quick, unconscious emotional responses to the advertisements, and this kind of technology may give us clue."
This unsettles me. Simply, I do not like the idea that people will not be given the opportunity to make an honest assessment of what is on offer before purchasing. I do suppose word of mouth will have a mitigating effect if the product is truly rubbish, but the amount of psychology that already goes into advertising worries me as it is.
I am less sure how I feel about this kind of technology influencing video game design. I suppose it could create games of immense short term appeal but, in the long term, perhaps it would be as much up in the air as any other expensively developed game. And I am not sure which the company would prefer, since if people did go off their game after a while they could always sell them another.
soltice reminded me there is a wide variety of brains we call human and many could well have differing reactions. So it is unlikely such techniques would yield universally effective advertising, at least for a while to come. I wonder what it would yield?
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Date: 2007-08-25 07:34 (UTC)From:I'm ebil :(
But.. this is still scary :(