The book “Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior” is written by Dr. Leonard Mlodinow, professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology. This post has some notes from the book featuring the results of studies in psychology and neuroscience.
• Scientists can use fMRI data to reconstruct an image of what you are looking at.
• Research shows that traumatic early experiences can cause physical changes in regions of the brain.
• The dorsal striatum is the part of the brain linked to the unconscious tendency to be favorably biased towards people who have traits similar to our own.
• A study showed that doubling the size of a container of snack food increased consumption by 30 to 45 percent.
• A study found that people rated foods with detailed descriptions as tasting better than identical foods that only had generic descriptions.
• A study showed that people were less likely to try an exercise again if instructions were printed in a hard-to-read font.
• An experiment showed that people would pay 40 to 61 percent more for an item of junk food if it was in front of them (as compared to simply reading about the item).
• A study showed that shoppers preferred stockings that had been perfumed, even though only 6 out of 250 subjects noticed the scent.
• A study showed that people who thought they were drinking expensive wine had increased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (even though in actuality the wine was a cheaper brand).
• A study showed that subjects with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex had less response to brand-name products.
• A study found that investors were more likely to invest in IPOs of companies whose names or ticker symbols were easy to pronounce.
• A study showed that restaurant customers tipped more on sunny days.
• A study showed that people were unconsciously aware of arousing images, even when their conscious minds were prevented from looking at the images.
• Research on police lineups show that 20 to 25 percent of the time witnesses make a choice that the police know is incorrect.
• A study showed that most participants didn’t notice that a conversation partner had been replaced with someone else during a moment of distraction.
• A study showed that false memories of a balloon trip were implanted in half of the subjects in one experiment.
• A study showed that a false memory of meeting Bugs Bunny during a trip to Disneyland was implanted in more than a quarter of study participants.
• Various studies have implanted false memories of being lost in a shopping mall, being rescued by a lifeguard, surviving an animal attack, having a finger caught in a mousetrap, spilling a punch bowl at a wedding reception, or being hospitalized overnight for a high fever.
• Parts of the brain linked to reward processing are activated when people participate in acts of mutual cooperation.
• Social pain and physical pain are both associated with activation in the anterior cingulate cortex.
• A study showed that subjects who were rejected by teammates (and who had been given acetaminophen) showed reduced activity in brain areas associated with social exclusion.
• A study found that investors who received oxytocin nasal spray were much more likely to show trust in their partners.
• Subjects who received oxytocin nasal spray rated strangers as more trustworthy and attractive.
• Research shows that men with fewer vasopressin receptors are twice as likely to have experienced marital problems and half as likely to be married.
• People automatically adjust the amount of time they spend looking into another person’s eyes as a function of their relative social position.
• A study found a strong correlation between a child’s popularity and their ability to read others.
• Women rate men with deeper voices as being more attractive.
• A study showed that people lowered the pitch of their voices when they believed they were physically dominant, and raised the pitch of their voices when they believed they were less dominant.
• A study of hunter-gatherers showed that men with lower-pitched voices fathered more children.
• A study showed that speakers with higher-pitched voices were judged to be less truthful, less emphatic, less potent, and more nervous than speakers with lower-pitched voices. Slwer-talking speakers were judged to be less truthful, less persuasive, and more passive than people who spoke more quickly.
• An experiment conducted before political elections found that candidates whose faces were perceived as more competent won 72 percent of Senate races and 69 percent of gubernatorial races.
• A study showed that significantly fewer customers who saw a well-dressed man shoplift reported the crime, as compared to those who watched an unkempt thief.
• Research shows that people with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex have fewer unconscious gender stereotypes.
• Studies have found that people will make large financial sacrifices to gain a feeling of belonging to an in-group they want to be a part of.
• A study of people from different professions found that they rated members of their own profession as more likable than average, with the exception of lawyers.
• A study of Asian women showed that they did better on a test when reminded of their Asian identity, and worse on the test when reminded of their female identity.
• Research shows that people make different moral decisions after seeing a happy film.
• Evidence indicates that women who are ovulating wear more revealing clothing, become more sexually competitive, and increase their preference for sexually competitive men.
• A study that had participants choose which of two facial photos were more attractive found that 75 percent of the study subjects didn’t realize it when the two faces were switched later.
• A survey of nearly one million high school seniors found that 100 percent rated themselves as at least average in their ability to get along with others, and 60 percent rated themselves in the top 10 percent.
• Research shows that 94 percent of college professors say they do above-average work.
• A study of engineers showed that between 30 percent and 40 percent said they were in the top 5 percent of performance.
• A study showed that physicians who diagnosed their patients as having pneumonia reported an average of 88 percent confidence in their diagnosis, when in reality they were correct only 20 percent of the time.
• A study found that people judged studies that supported their beliefs to be more methodologically sound than studies that opposed their beliefs.
• A study showed that college students accurately remembered 89% of which high school classes they had received A’s in, but only 29% of the classes they had received D’s in.
• Research shows that the people with the most accurate self-perceptions tend to be moderately depressed, suffer from low self-esteem, or both.
