On the effect of gilded cables on sound perception
Inspired by the publication "Expensive and Cheap Speaker Cables: What's the Difference?"
I don’t think that I’ll open up America to anyone if I say that in any rather noticeably commercialized area of hobbies, at some point, there are fierce debates about what amount of money the minimum acceptable quality of the product begins with. This applies to almost everything: audio equipment, photographic equipment, wine, cheeses, gaming graphics cards, mobile phones, bath mixers, works of modern art, et cetera ad infinitum.
It is clear that in all this there is an element of the social game of petitioning, which is standard for a person. However, the widespread occurrence of the phenomenon makes one think that there is something in it besides a sense of one’s own superiority by demonstrating wealth.
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And so, in 2008, scientists from California State Technical University and Stanford conducted one experiment that shed light on the nature of fierce sraches about the taste qualities of fermented grape juice.
The experiment consisted of the following: a group of test subjects was offered to try different sorts of wine (expensive and cheap) and record sensations. Naturally, the wine was the same each time (which the subjects did not notice), but under the guise of expensive it was pleasant, of course, much more than under the guise of cheap. There have been many such experiments before, but Caltech and Stanford are not humanists of any kind, they have thoroughly approached the question.
Namely: at the time of tasting, the subjects were connected to the MRI apparatus, and their brain activity was recorded and analyzed. It turned out the following: when a person thinks that he drinks expensive wine, he is more excited about certain parts of the brain than when he thinks that he is drinking cheap . More specifically, we are talking about a brain area called the medial orbitofrontal cortex (medial orbitofrontal cortex). This is one of the least studied parts of the brain. It is believed that he is responsible for analyzing sensory information, making decisions, making judgments, adaptive learning and “correct” social behavior.
In other words, there is no deception: people who think that they drink expensive wine really feel more intensely than when they think they are drinking cheap. The Center for the Analysis of Sensory Information "turns on" earlier, it works more intensively; sensitivity to incoming sensory information (taste, smell) increases. Naturally, a person begins to feel all sorts of "flavors" and "aftertaste" in wine.
The original work, as befits an academic study, is stingy with generalizations - they did not measure the effects of gold cables and expensive lenses. But, I believe, it is possible to say with a high degree of confidence that the mechanism is the same everywhere: the assessment unit is “activated” by the high price information;
Original research: Hilke Plassmann, John O'Doherty, Baba Shiv, Antonio Range. Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness
I don’t think that I’ll open up America to anyone if I say that in any rather noticeably commercialized area of hobbies, at some point, there are fierce debates about what amount of money the minimum acceptable quality of the product begins with. This applies to almost everything: audio equipment, photographic equipment, wine, cheeses, gaming graphics cards, mobile phones, bath mixers, works of modern art, et cetera ad infinitum.
It is clear that in all this there is an element of the social game of petitioning, which is standard for a person. However, the widespread occurrence of the phenomenon makes one think that there is something in it besides a sense of one’s own superiority by demonstrating wealth.
')
And so, in 2008, scientists from California State Technical University and Stanford conducted one experiment that shed light on the nature of fierce sraches about the taste qualities of fermented grape juice.
The experiment consisted of the following: a group of test subjects was offered to try different sorts of wine (expensive and cheap) and record sensations. Naturally, the wine was the same each time (which the subjects did not notice), but under the guise of expensive it was pleasant, of course, much more than under the guise of cheap. There have been many such experiments before, but Caltech and Stanford are not humanists of any kind, they have thoroughly approached the question.
Namely: at the time of tasting, the subjects were connected to the MRI apparatus, and their brain activity was recorded and analyzed. It turned out the following: when a person thinks that he drinks expensive wine, he is more excited about certain parts of the brain than when he thinks that he is drinking cheap . More specifically, we are talking about a brain area called the medial orbitofrontal cortex (medial orbitofrontal cortex). This is one of the least studied parts of the brain. It is believed that he is responsible for analyzing sensory information, making decisions, making judgments, adaptive learning and “correct” social behavior.
In other words, there is no deception: people who think that they drink expensive wine really feel more intensely than when they think they are drinking cheap. The Center for the Analysis of Sensory Information "turns on" earlier, it works more intensively; sensitivity to incoming sensory information (taste, smell) increases. Naturally, a person begins to feel all sorts of "flavors" and "aftertaste" in wine.
The original work, as befits an academic study, is stingy with generalizations - they did not measure the effects of gold cables and expensive lenses. But, I believe, it is possible to say with a high degree of confidence that the mechanism is the same everywhere: the assessment unit is “activated” by the high price information;
Original research: Hilke Plassmann, John O'Doherty, Baba Shiv, Antonio Range. Marketing actions can modulate neural representations of experienced pleasantness
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/365259/
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