Invited lecture "Brain mechanisms of persuasive communication, attitute change and elementary decision making".? By Prof. Ale Smidts and Vasily Klucharev (Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University)

Summary

The vast diversity of advertising makes it an excellent vehicle by which persuasive communication can be studied. One of the most powerful techniques of persuasion is that of high expertise of the communicator, often referred to as "expert power". Many celebrities get hired for large sums of money to endorse products (e.g., Tiger Woods for Nike Golf).
Using fMRI, we report that brief presentation of an expert's photo enhances activity of brain regions that are known to be involved in learning and trust. We simulated advertising and studied how the attitude and memory for objects (products) were modulated by the perceived expertise of the presenter.
We found a substantial behavioral effect of the experts on memory and buying intention. Turning to the brain, our data suggest that experts modulate the activity in a set of brain regions involved in memory encoding (medial temporal lobe) and trustful behavior (dorsal striatum) that probably enables effective persuasion.
In the final part of the presentation, we will briefly outline two other studies our group is working on. In a follow-up study to the expertise study, we investigate the role of social influence in attitude change. For that we are developing a paradigm for more precise modulation of attitudes during brain imaging studies.
In a different project we study elementary (perceptual) decision making. Preliminary results reveal decision areas in the human brain. Our results are discussed as a general mechanism for human decision making, and we demonstrate that we are able to separate motor preparation from decision making.

Place: Radiology department library (Hs-220k). University Medical Centre Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Time: Thursday 18 January at 16:00h