Political Minds
Focus groups are so 1990s. The savviest political consultants are now buzzing about the possibilities of divining voter attitudes through a new technology: "functional magnetic resonance imaging," a.k.a. brain scanning. As people are shown advertising and other messages, they are exposed to a strong magnetic field that measures the flow of oxygenated blood, revealing what ...
Focus groups are so 1990s. The savviest political consultants are now buzzing about the possibilities of divining voter attitudes through a new technology: "functional magnetic resonance imaging," a.k.a. brain scanning. As people are shown advertising and other messages, they are exposed to a strong magnetic field that measures the flow of oxygenated blood, revealing what stimulates certain parts of the brain. It may sound like science fiction, but political pollster John Zogby is "absolutely" convinced that U.S. presidential candidates will be using it during the 2008 campaign.
Focus groups are so 1990s. The savviest political consultants are now buzzing about the possibilities of divining voter attitudes through a new technology: "functional magnetic resonance imaging," a.k.a. brain scanning. As people are shown advertising and other messages, they are exposed to a strong magnetic field that measures the flow of oxygenated blood, revealing what stimulates certain parts of the brain. It may sound like science fiction, but political pollster John Zogby is "absolutely" convinced that U.S. presidential candidates will be using it during the 2008 campaign.
The leading U.S. practitioner of the method is Marco Iacoboni, a professor of neuropsychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles. He argues that the technique is far superior to focus groups, where people just "say what they’re expected to say, rather than what they feel."
Critics may fret about a candidate’s being able to literally read voters’ minds. But Iacoboni claims it is a "highly ethical science." "We get information from the brains of viewers," he says. "We’re not manipulating their [brains] in any way." Zogby predicts these reassurances won’t be enough to assuage people’s fears. His advice: If you are going to do it, do it "very, very secretly." You don’t need a mind reader to tell you that.
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