An article in Tuesday’s NY Times Science section explores embodied cognition.
The article highlights a recent study in the journal Psychological Science that finds when people are asked to think backward in time, they tend to lean backward slightly. When asked to think about the future, they angle their bodies forward.
All of this, of course, suggests the origin of metaphors and why they are so critical to the way we think.
Thanks to Nick Kimminau of OZA for calling my attention to this article on the movie Avatar, whose storyline is a metaphor for, well, seemingly everything! It’s a powerful example of co-creation.
As I watched the movie, I interpreted it as a metaphorical statement against the United States’ treatment of Native Americans. Others see it as a renunciation of the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan. Others see it as an anti-military polemic. Others frame it as an environmental movie. Do a Google search for “Avatar Metaphor” and all sorts of things pop up.
I guess that’s why it is a good movie, above and beyond the special effects. It has a story that can be interpreted in many ways.
I just completed Malcolm Gladwell’s new book, What the Dog Saw. Lately there has been a bit of an anti-Gladwell backlash in some circles, apparently because he writes too coherently and sells too many books. But, as usual, his book answers of bunch of interesting questions, including:
The book consists of a series of essays Gladwell has published in the New Yorker over the years, which makes the book easy to digest in small chunks.
In the spirit of objectivity, here is a tough but fair critique of What the Dog Saw by noted evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, followed by an exchange of letters between the two men.
Here is a blog post from a Xerox researcher, who discusses the various conceptual metaphors people use to think about the web.
He dwells specifically on the limitations of and, really, the inaccuracy of the “document metaphor” and how that can inhibit our thinking about how various web applications work and what is possible in the future.
There is an excellent sportswriter out here in Kansas City, Joe Posnanski, who blogs about all kinds of things – sports, of course but also pop culture, technology, and advertising. In his latest blog post, he discusses his reaction to Verizon Wireless’ “3G coverage map” ad campaign.
(By the way, if you are unfamiliar with the campaign – and AT&T’s controversial reaction to it – click here)
Posnanski’s post says a lot about how Verizon has successfully re-framed AT&T and the iPhone…and how AT&T has failed in its attempts to argue against that frame. Here is what he says:
“OK, so my thought on the Verizon Maps commercials: They are brilliant. I was going to write an entire post on this, but since I’m already writing about 20,000 words a week I have not had the time to do it. So I’ll sum it up with that one word. Brilliant*.
“*OK, fine, I’ll write a few more words — one of my best friends and I often play this little business game. He’s a successful business guy, I’m a goofball sportswriter, so we feel qualified over various dinners to come up with all sorts of ideas how we would handle hugely intense business challenges like how we would save the newspaper business or how we would save the music business or how we would save health care or whatever.
“One of the big ones we came up with: How can anyone beat the iPhone? The iPhone is an absolute marvel, there’s just no way around it. It’s a phone that allows you to play games, watch movies, listen to music and do about 12 million other things. It’s small and cool looking and lightweight. I mean, seriously, how are you going to beat it? Are you going to come up with a BETTER phone? Maybe, but even if you could, well, how much better? The Droid is going for the “better phone” concept. But I’m not giving up my iPhone for a phone that might be two percent better. The iPhone is just an overpowering thing.
“And then, Verizon comes up with these Map commercials — where they show how much better 3G coverage they have than AT&T (the only company that supports that iPhone). And — BLAM! To be honest, it doesn’t even matter what the map actually shows because what you see is “Damn, that Verizon map looks to be a lot better covered than the AT&T map.” You aren’t thinking: “Wow, I guess that means as an AT&T customer I might not get 3G service in Neverbeenthere, Idaho or Askfordirections, Mississippi.” No, you are thinking: Man, is Verizon service THAT MUCH BETTER?
“And then, you start to notice that, yes, you lose some calls on your iPhone. In fact, you lose quite a few calls. And while you are calling back, you wonder: “Would that have happened on Verizon? I mean, they have that really full map.”
“And then friends say: “Man, I hate your iPhone. You are constantly losing calls.”
“And so on.
“Here’s how I know that the Verizon commercials hit bone: AT&T has come back with preposterously shrill and weak comeback commercials where they brought in the second-most famous Wilson brother to yelp that, AT&T does TOO have good coverage and it’s Verizon that sucks and … la la la la … just … shut up already.
“A haymaker commercial really is a thing of beauty. I don’t even LIKE the Verizon commercials. I mean, they’re not really funny or entertaining. But it seems to me they are brutally effective.”
Happy New Year!
Here is a column from Drew Westen, a consultant who wrote an excellent book about the emotion of political decision-making titled The Political Brain.
This column attributes Barack Obama’s rocky first year to his inability to strike an emotional chord with most Americans. Westin’s argument is that Obama, who built his campaign around his personal biography, has abandoned storytelling and narrative as a form of communication – a bad idea for a President or, for that matter, for marketers.
Many good thoughts in the column (and in Westen’s book) about emotions, framing, and the role of stories in shaping thought.
This is a recent article about a relatively new “green” business. A company called Gazelle apparently is doing quite well encouraging people to recycle their unwanted electronics for cash.
They process your used stuff at their “Electronics Orphanage,” and then either recycle or re-sell them. They claim to have grown 100% in each quarter, and they took in 10,000 products in August alone.
A piece from Jonah Lehrer (author of How We Decide and Proust was a Neuroscientist) about the cognitive benefits of travel.
Hi,
On a recent trip to Tampa, a colleague and I ate at Bern’s Steak House, which does a great job of creating an emotionally compelling dining experience.
You can read more about the food here and the ambiance here.
Suphavat Khamijoun from OZA’s global partner in Thailand, TMRC Research, passes along an article by Jonah Lehrer (author of Proust was a Neuroscientist and How We Decide) about the so-called “Tiger Woods Effect.”
It is a look at why we often should let our unconscious minds have free rein. Lehrer presents a hypothesis that when people get nervous about performing, they tend to fixate on the details of what are doing, don’t perform naturally, and thus don’t perform well.
This might explain why Tiger Woods’ competitors tend to crumble in the latter stages of a golf tournament. Because Woods is so good, other golfers feel like they need to be perfect, begin overanalyzing their swings, and end up missing easy putts and slicing balls into the trees.
Suphavat has an interesting hypothesis of his own: He suggests that perhaps this is why traditional direct questioning in market research doesn’t work well in many circumstances. It forces consumers to overanalyze their behavior and thoughts, thus their tendency to “get it wrong” in those kinds of research environments.
