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OUR LIPS ARE SEALED
WHY THE TRUTH IS IMPLICIT
David Penn • Suzanne Lugthart
INTRODUCTION
Much of the truth (about brands, advertising and products) lies submerged, in our implicit mind. Direct questioning cannot
elicit this truth, because we cannot express attitudes that we don’t know we possess. To penetrate the implicit mind, we
need approaches which reflect its fast, automatic and emotional nature.
This paper explains how response latency and metaphors were harnessed to create non-directive tools which tap into
automatic processes. For eBay, the approach revealed a strong (and hidden) negative bias among non-users and showed
that these beliefs could successfully be challenged by new ATL advertising.
MIND OVER MATTER
Back in the day, market research seemed to have all the answers about brands. Indeed, the scientific apparatus of
quantitative research - segmentation, clustering, modelling, etc. - seemed so sophisticated compared with its slightly
prosaic subject matter: soap, toothpaste, biscuits and the like. Yet now the reverse seems true: brands are so central to
our culture and so deeply rooted in our psyche that it is the traditional tools of measurement which seem unequal to the
task. Why?
Modern market research was born on a wave of mid-20th century optimism; at a time when it seemed that science would
not only make us richer and our lives easier, but would lead inexorably to a greater understanding of things, driving out
mysticism and irrationalism and enabling us to live a more ordered and rational way of life. (If you don’t believe me, look at
some of the sci-fi from that era).
The rise of market research also coincided with the rise of mid-20th century cognitive science, which gave us the
metaphor of the mind as a machine. Market research thus started as a quasi-scientific endeavour to discover the objective
facts about consumer attitudes and behaviour - the underlying assumption being that attitudes and behaviour can be
objectively measured – mainly though verbal self-reporting.
The ‘mind as machine’ metaphor was always seductive, but fundamentally misleading – it only takes us so far because it
explains cognition, not emotion nor implicit reasoning. As Rita Carter (1999) says, you can’t programme a computer to be
emotional (or to ‘think’ implicitly) because it just doesn’t have the right biological evolution.
What we’ve learned in recent decades is that humans have evolved as emotional animals and, moreover, that thinking and
reasoning are not always transparent or (consciously) accessible. Although psychology has long accepted the importance
of implicit mechanisms (particularly in the area of memory), most market researchers (at least on the quantitative side)
assumed that what mattered most were consciously (explicit) expressed attitudes and thoughts.
The role of emotion was not - until the advent of cognitive neuroscience - seen as particularly significant. Thus, for
example, in communications theory, emotion was a means of gaining attention (involvement) so that persuasive
information could be delivered more effectively - because we will probably pay more attention to advertising that we like.
(You will find an echo of this view in recent work by Millward Brown’s Du Plessis).1)
Oscar Wilde once commented, “I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair
about its use. It is hitting below the intellect.”
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Perhaps Oscar was anticipating consumer mass marketing when he made that remark, because in the traditional (20th
century) model of brand communication, advertising was seen as a kind of missile-delivery system. The choice of
metaphor here is deliberate, because marketers love to think of what they do in militaristic terms – campaigns, targeting,
getting ‘bangs for bucks’ were (and still are) all widely used terms.
So the earliest models of how advertising works, like AIDA (Attention – Interest – Decision - Action), assumed a linear
relationship between advertising impact and eventual action - the basic idea being that to change behaviour, you must get
attention and lodge a (persuasive) message. Furthermore, this model assumes that messages are consciously processed
and can be accessed explicitly, via recall. Advertising researchers therefore developed methodologies in which recall was
king and persuasion shifts the desired outcome. Otherwise, it was argued, how can brand communication be justified?
Yet as early as the late 1960s the foundations of this model were beginning to crumble. By this point, the proliferation of
choice in many markets and the lack of real product differentiation were starting to make persuasion-based marketing
untenable.
Persuading people to buy your product (and then asking them if they’re persuaded) is a viable strategy until one runs out
of (persuasive) things to say – and, in many categories, that is more or less what happened. As markets matured and
product differentiation lessened, marketers found it increasingly difficult to work to a persuasion strategy. In newer, less
mature markets, it was easier – but once the competition catches up (and in a globalised world they inevitably will do)
what is there left with to say?
The answer is, of course, to transform your product from a physical object (with rational benefits) into a mental construct
(with positive associations). Rather than labour to persuade consumers of objective benefits (washes whiter, tastes better,
lasts longer, etc.) over competitive products, why not create thoughts, feelings and beliefs about it which differentiate it
from the rest?
Brands are mental constructs, not physical things - they exist in the mind of the perceiver not in the physical world. They
also increasingly feature on the balance sheet, because the value of many corporations lies in the values and beliefs that
their customers ascribe to their brand(s), rather than the physical assets they possess. Brands are now often as (or more)
valuable than the products they represent.
Perhaps, in a hundred years or so, brands will be seen as the most significant cultural phenomenon of the late 20th
century - as a sort of triumph of mind over matter. Indeed, one might say that:
In the late 20th century, the most successful brands almost transcended their physical existence - they existed primarily in
the minds of individual consumers and in the collective consciousness.
What has become clear to us is that if we want to understand brands, we must similarly transcend the traditional means of
measurement – and find new ways of measuring the consumer’s implicit attitudes and feelings, and the emotions that
underlie them.
OUR LIPS ARE SEALED
Brands exist primarily in the mind, but increasingly we’ve come to realise that you cannot understand the mind without
understanding emotion and implicit processes. Yet we inherit a tradition of market research that works mainly within the
world of expressed (explicit) feelings and attitudes. Because we can’t see into the minds of the individuals, we largely rely
on what people tell us.
But what exactly are we measuring when we ask people questions? The answer: we are measuring what people can and
will tell us rather than what they can’t and won’t tell us.
Yet we know that self-reports can sometimes yield biased or false data. According to a recent IJMR paper (Gregg et al,
2013) there are three major biases:
Firstly, respondents may give socially desirable answers. For example, questions about ‘green’ issues can elicit responses
in keeping with what they believe researchers want to hear.
Secondly, respondents may deceive themselves that they hold attitudes even when they don’t. Again, a consumer may well
profess to wanting to ‘save the planet’ yet exhibit behaviour completely at variance with it.
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Finally, and most importantly, respondents might simply lack insight into what their real attitudes are - particularly if they
lack any considered opinion. Or, they may simply, grab the most available view, belief or association.
The authors conclude: “In all three cases, respondents’ explicit attitudes – what they overtly state or consciously believe –
do not correspond with their implicit attitudes – their concealed or unconscious counterparts.”
Perhaps the reason that market researchers put so much emphasis on explicit (and deliberative) response is because it is
much easier for them to think that way and to frame questions that way. Easier, perhaps, but misleading, because it is
simply incorrect to assume that people know what they think (and why they think it) and, moreover, can explain it back to
an interviewer or moderator.
The mind is not a machine for the simple reason that it lives and works within a physical home – our brain and our body.
What cognitive neuroscience suggests is that our mind is not separate from the brain, but embodied in it. Or, as Steven
Pinker (1997) puts it: ‘the mind is what the brain does’ and the brain does a lot more than produce conscious, rational
thought. Crucially, it houses all our emotional apparatus as well as that part of the mind unknown to us – the implicit mind.
ENTER THE IMPLICIT MIND
The idea of the implicit mind (in its widest sense) has been around for quite a while – certainly since the early part of the
20th century, when Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind created a conceptual framework (and a vocabulary) that
survives to this day.
Essentially, Freud argued that consciousness is the centre for perception (and attention) whereas the unconscious mind is
the storehouse of memories, desires, and needs. Past thoughts and memories which are deleted from conscious thought
are stored by the unconscious mind and these thoughts help direct the thoughts and feelings of an individual and influence
their (conscious) decision making processes.
A founding principle of modern cognitive psychology is that, while we can have conscious access to the outputs of
cognitive processes (thoughts, feelings, attitudes, etc.) we work in ignorance of the processes themselves. Cognitive
scientists have long accepted that people’s preferences and beliefs can be influenced by implicit memories. For example,
Zajonc (1980) discovered that simple preferences (between stimuli) could be formed without conscious registration of the
stimuli themselves.2).
But the modern conception of the implicit mind goes beyond the Freudian one (a kind of storehouse of things we’ve
consciously learned but forgotten), to include those things we’ve learned below the radar of our own awareness – either
passively or implicitly. In this view, the implicit mind is not just a place where previously conscious thoughts and feelings
are kept - it’s also the place where things we’ve learned without conscious awareness are stored.
According to Frensch and Rünger (2003), implicit learning is about learning complex information in an incidental manner,
without awareness of what has been learned. It may require a certain minimal amount of attention and may depend on
attentional and working memory mechanisms, but it works primarily through passive, incidental and automatic acquisition
– requiring no conscious effort to absorb the learning. By contrast, explicit learning requires the conscious observation,
understanding and memorization of content.
In The Hidden Power of Advertising, Robert Heath (2001) proposed that information about brands and advertising can be
acquired through passive/implicit learning at levels of low (or no) attention. His key point was that such learning takes
place independent of attention and reinforces (emotional) associations which become linked to the brand – producing
associations that are enduring and which can trigger emotional markers which in turn influence intuitive choice.
In short, he argued emotional associations (from brand communication) are more likely to be processed automatically than
with the conscious effort that explicit learning requires. Three (neuroscientific) theories proved particularly influential in
framing Heath’s model:
1.
Le Doux’s (1996) belief that the direct link between thalamus and amygdala enables the brain to react emotionally,
prior to conscious awareness of stimuli, creating the possibility that emotional information might be processed
independently of attention.
2.
Damasio’s (1994) assertion of the primacy of affect over cognition (thinking). This, more or less, turns the cause and
effect of AIDA on its head, because it suggests that emotions (not thinking) drive behaviour, and hypothesises that
when emotion and cognition come into conflict, emotions win.
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3.
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Daniel Dennet’s (1991) notion of parallel processing of information, at high and low attention levels, creates the
possibility of learning about brands via information processing at either no, or very low, levels of conscious
awareness.
Damasio emphasises the automaticity of emotional response: ‘We do not need to be conscious of the inducer of an
emotion and often are not. Nor can we control them wilfully. You may be in a happy or sad state, but can’t say why. We
are about as effective at stopping an emotion as stopping a sneeze.’
Similarly, Le Doux (1996) observes that one can’t fake emotion, yet emotions can overwhelm consciousness. Thus with an
emotion like fear, the conscious feeling of fear is only part of a bodily reaction that includes sweating, pounding heart etc.
This process occurs automatically (and implicitly) before we even know we’re in danger.
Even when faced with complex decisions, our emotions help us out of trouble. Operating implicitly, they act as heuristics basically a way of making a decision where no ‘logical’ solution is available. Neither emotion nor heuristics are substitutes
for proper reasoning, but they can increase the efficiency and speed of the reasoning process – because they require less
(cognitive) energy. What is certain, however, is that the choices made by the implicit mind are quick, automatic and certain.
ONE MIND OR TWO? DUAL PROCESSING
What this suggests is that we actually have two systems in our brain working side by side, consciously and unconsciously;
explicitly and implicitly: a cognitive/explicit system that knows, analyses, reflects, calculates and makes decisions, and an
implicit/emotional/intuitive system that reacts, spontaneously, immediately and intuitively via emotions and heuristics.
As early as 1974, Tversky and Kahneman claimed that intuitive type reasoning is informal and unstructured and relies on
heuristics that include such compensations as similarity, representativeness and attributions of causality. They believed
that the information the system acts upon is content specific and affective (emotional) whereas ‘extensional’ reasoning is
controlled, slow and deliberate and acts as a regulator monitoring intuitive responses that it can choose to endorse or
override.
The broad terms ‘System 1’ and ‘System 2’ (to describe these two modes of thinking) were actually coined by Stanovich
and West (2000). Their two-system theory is primarily concerned with what causes differences in the way individuals
reason.
System 1 is implemented automatically, is unconscious, and is context-dependent, relying on heuristics. System 2 is a
controlled process that is purely analytical and is based on making abstractions that do not rely on context. The primacy of
System 1 leads to what Stanovich (1999) calls the fundamental computational bias, which is the tendency to automatically
contextualise problems. This bias prevents individuals from reasoning about a task according to its logical properties –
instead, they rely on cues from its context which are interpreted in relation to real-life experiences.
Stanovich and West highlight the links between their theories and implicit learning theorists’ such as Barry & Dienes’
(1997) conceptions of explicit and implicit processing. Both theories converge in suggesting that implicit processing occurs
incidentally and without awareness, whereas explicit processing (learning) is always deliberate and always accompanied
by awareness. Stanovich proposes that one of the main purposes of System 2 is to decouple information from the context
automatically supplied by System 1.
Kahneman (2003) provided further clarification by differentiating the two styles of processing more, calling them intuition
and reasoning. Intuition is similar to associative reasoning, is fast and automatic, usually with strong emotional bonds
included in the reasoning process. Kahneman argues that this kind of reasoning is based on formed habits and very
difficult to change or manipulate. Reasoning is slower and much more volatile, being subject to conscious judgments and
attitudes. In Thinking Fast and Slow (2011) he provides a helpful set of characteristics for each system (see figure 1).
:
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FIGURE 1. CHARACTERISTICS OF EACH PROCESSING SYSTEM
System 1
System 2
Unconscious reasoning
Conscious reasoning
Implicit
Explicit
Automatic
Controlled
Low Effort
High Effort
Large capacity
Small capacity
Rapid
Slow
Default Process
Inhibitory
Associative
Rule based
Contextualized
Abstract
Domain Specific
Domain General
Evolutionarily Old
Evolutionarily recent
Nonverbal
Linked to language
Includes recognition, perception, orientation
Includes rule following, comparisons, weighing of options
Modular Cognition
Fluid Intelligence
Independent of working memory
Limited by working memory capacity
Non-Logical
Logical
Parallel
Serial
Kahneman (2011) actually describes the two systems as “fictitious characters” (metaphors, if you like) because they are
not physical entities, nor is there any part of the brain either system would call home. Rather they are characterisations of
two types of thinking, and man is capable of both – the effortless (intuition) and the effortful (reasoning).
The dual system approach is not without its detractors – for example, Hammond’s (1996) cognitive continuum theory
proposes that different forms of cognition (intuitive, analytical, common sense) are situated in relation to one another along
a continuum that places intuitive processing at one end and analytical processing at the other.
Magda Osman (2004) concludes her review of dual systems by saying that much evidence put forward to support the dual
approach is actually consistent with single system accounts (such as Hammond’s), and that certain automatic types of
reasoning may have been misclassified by dual-process theorists as implicit.
We should not be too distracted by debates about whether all automatic processes are implicit (probably not) or whether
implicit is the same as unconscious (not always) because we believe for our purposes (as marketers and advertisers)
there’s a simple operational definition that does the job:
The implicit mind is the bit we’re not aware of, but which influences most of what we do, because it is wholly automatic,
mostly unconscious and largely emotional.
DIRECT OR INDIRECT?
The dual system approach has also had a fundamental impact on our understanding of how attitudes are formed, and
shifted the focus away from explicitly expressed attitudes and beliefs towards to the measurement of implicit attitudes.
Wittenbrink (2007) cites three key reasons for increased attention to implicit measures in attitude studies:
1.
2.
3.
That implicit measures promise to address a long standing problem (with standard self-report measures of attitudes):
people do not necessarily tell the truth.
The wide acceptance (among cognitive scientists) that evaluations can occur automatically without any deliberation.3)
And, most importantly: The availability of implicit attitude measures which provide the necessary tool for measurement
of automatic attitudinal responses.
Up until the late 1990s, research into attitudes mainly employed direct measures. Direct measures require participants to
consciously or deliberately think about a certain attitude object (for example a brand or a concept) and subsequently play
back their attitudes via verbal self-reporting - for example, on semantic differential scales or Likert-scales. Thus, by means
of explicit introspective processing, participants arrive at an attitude toward an object, either by retrieving it from memory
or by constructing it on the spot.
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By contrast, indirect measures try to measure participants' implicit attitudes, which Greenwald and Banaji (1995) describe
as:
“Introspectively unidentified (or inaccurately identified) traces of past experience that mediate favourable or unfavourable
feeling, thought, or action toward social objects”.
It was Greenwald and Banaji who introduced the implicit–explicit dichotomy to attitude research. Since then the implicitexplicit terminology has become popular for referring both to the form of measurement (indirect vs. direct) and the form of
representation in memory (implicit vs. explicit).
Greenwald and Banaji also note that attitudes – in addition to their conscious manifestations – might also operate in an
indirect, unconscious, or implicit mode. Such implicit attitudes are activated automatically, not necessarily requiring
conscious thought or attention. Whether or not implicitly measured attitudes are also (truly) unconscious is widely debated
since it is possible that participants might be unaware that their attitudes are being assessed rather than unaware that they
actually possess such attitudes. Despite these reservations, however, indirect measures seem particularly useful when
consumers do not have readily available attitudes that they could consciously report on – attitudes consumers may not be
aware of, able to express, or willing to share with the researcher.
Indirect measures differ from direct measures in that they do not rely on verbal self-reports as a way of inferring attitudes.
Instead, they rely rather on indirect means of assessing an attitude, for example differences in reaction times, facial
expression, or specific brain activation. Indirect measures can be further distinguished into physiological or latency based
(reaction time) measures.
Indirect physiological measures of attitude include techniques such as eye-tracking, brainwave measurement (EEG), skin
conductance (GSR), or various brain imaging techniques, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which
allow direct observation of brain activity during mental tasks. While promising in their own right, these physiological
measures do not yet (according to Greenwald and Banaji) offer standardised forms of attitude assessment. In addition,
they often require (very) expensive equipment and a considerable expertise in cognitive neuroscience, which make most of
these research techniques inaccessible and/or ill-suited for many kinds of more applied research.
Yet some have argued that brain imaging (and other indirect physiological measures) could supplant the unsatisfying,
subjective world of direct response by providing us with an objective measurement of the mind. They argue that, whilst we
can introspect on our own feelings and thoughts, we cannot see into our own brain processes and nor can any third party
observer. That window is closed to us except through the route of physiological indirect measures.
Indeed, a decade ago, physiological measurement seemed to promise a new dawn for market research. In 2003,
neuroscientists at the Baylor Institute in the U.S. published a study on the neural correlates of cola preference. Firstly, they
established that (in conventional MR tests) Pepsi is preferred to Coke blind, but not branded. Then, using fMRI, they noticed
that certain areas of the brain (associated with emotion) were active when respondents knowingly chose Coke yet were
not active when they chose Pepsi. They also found that when respondents selected Pepsi or Coke blind, no such
differences emerged – indicating that preference for Coke was not explicable in terms of product advantage.
There was much excitement when news of this experiment broke, because it seemed to ‘prove’ what many of us had
suspected for years – that the real driver of brand preference (at least in this category) was not sensory, but emotional.
But just because we can observe neural activation during brand preference, can we conclude that brand preference is
essentially the same thing as neural activation? When we feel something it is accompanied by an observable physiological
response (in the brain and elsewhere). Now, the physical and the mental may both be parts of the same thing, but they are
not identical: one is physiological and observable: the other a subjective, mental experience.
It’s extremely tempting to jump from correlation to causal explanation and end up believing that all behaviour can be
explained by (or reduced to) physiological activity. It’s what neuroscientist/philosopher, Raymond Tallis (2011) calls
neuromania - a kind of determinism that maintains we can explain, predict and even control human behaviour via our
understanding of the brain.
A good example can be found in Martin Lindstrom’s Buy.Ology (2008) which reports an experiment where religious
zealots and brand loyalists’ brains were scanned whilst they each contemplated the objects of their devotion. “Bottom line,
there was no discernible difference between the way subjects’ brains reacted to powerful brands and the way they
reacted to religious icons and figures… Clearly our emotional engagement with powerful brands shares strong parallels
with our feelings about religion.”
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Just because the same part of the brain ‘lights up’ when we think about God and when we think about Apple, does that
make the two mental states the same? There are certainly some similarities between religion and brands, but we don’t
know anyone who worships at the Church of Apple, goes to Apple heaven when they die, or believes Steve Jobs is a deity.
Indeed, one might argue that the only thing the two phenomena have in common is that they activate the same bit of the
brain.
Zaltman and Mast (2006) note that ‘‘emotion without cognitive appraisal is really just arousal.’’ What they mean is that
while implicit processes such as emotions may be detectable via physiological measures, that does not tell us much about
them - except perhaps their valence (positive or negative). Emotions, heuristics (and other implicit processes) only begin to
mean something when they show up in the conscious mind as feelings or attitudes: prior to that they are merely the
evidence that something is going on – activation, arousal, etc.
The fact is, that while indirect physiological measures are effective at detecting arousal, the science has not advanced to
the point where it is possible to correlate attitude with specific brain or body response.
How then can we measure attitudes and feelings without either asking direct questions or measuring indirect physiological
response? Two new approaches (one from cognitive psychology and the other from cognitive linguistics) which attempt to
do this are discussed below.
USING RESPONSE LATENCY TO MEASURE IMPLICIT ATTITUDES
In contrast to direct (self-report) measures, implicit measures aim to assess attitudinal responses that do not stem from an
active, intentional search for relevant information, but instead are the result of passive processes that run their course
automatically after exposure to an attitude object.
The logic underlying such a method is that mental states can be inferred on the basis of indirect measures of response
time rather than relying on asking the subject a direct question. Reaction time (or response latency) is the variable to
estimate the nature of mental computation which now underlies dozens of methods – including Implicit Association Tests
(IATs). We’ve seen that implicit physiological approaches are often non-scaleable and hard to apply to attitude
measurement, but this is much less true of indirect measures based on response latencies.
According to Lane et al (2007) the idea of measuring response latency owes a debt to F.C. Donders who, in the mid-19th
century, made the fundamental discovery that the time required to perform a mental computation reveals something
fundamental about how the mind works. Donders opened up possibilities for studying mental processes, the effects of
which are visible in cognitive science even 150 years later. The idea underlying an entire family of response latency
techniques remains the same as conjectured by Donders:
The easier a mental task, the quicker the decision point is reached and the fewer errors that result.
Donders took for granted the logic underlying such a method – that mental states could be inferred on the basis of indirect
measures of response time rather than relying on asking the subject a direct question. Response latency is the variable to
estimate the nature of mental computation which now underlies dozens of methods. Measures such as the Stroop task,
affective priming, the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task, the Go/No-Go Association Task, and particularly the Implicit
Association Test (IAT), are fairly standardised forms of attitude assessment requiring little more than a computer and a
testing environment void of external distractions.
The IAT is a method of estimating evaluative associations that underlie implicit attitudes, and draws on differences in
response times in a rapid computerised categorization task. Introduced more than a decade ago by Greenwald, McGhee,
and Schwartz (1998), it is now one of the most widely used indirect attitude measures.
What is new about the recent set of implicit approaches is that they aim to capture automatic evaluative responses to an
attitude object. According to Schiffrin & Schneider (1997), such responses occur fast, within a few hundred milliseconds
after encountering the attitude object and result from processes that are unintentional, resource-efficient and outside
conscious awareness and control. In contrast to self-report measures, such measures aim to assess attitudinal responses
that do not stem from an active, intentional search for relevant information, but instead are the result of passive processes
that run their course automatically after exposure to an attitude object.
Greenwald & Banaji (1995) believe that if the IAT can detect attitudes of which people are unaware, then it should have the
capacity to predict behaviours stemming from those attitudes that respondents themselves cannot predict. Lane et al
(2007) say there’s strong reason to believe it could also predict purchase in instances where consumers are undecided
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explicitly about the relative merits of two products. Indeed, Brunel et al (2004) tested the applicability of the IAT in
consumer research and concluded that the IAT is a valid measurement instrument for capturing consumer attitudes. In
two studies, they showed that the IAT was sensitive to individual differences in attitude accessibility and that the IAT can
capture automatic associations that are distinct from explicit measures.4).
Response latency thus shows considerable promise for measurement of attitudes in market research. Indeed Gregg et al
(2013) believe such approaches offer unique advantages which relate to their capacity to tap into the implicit, and thereby
provide information that would not otherwise be forthcoming. Although primarily verbal, their combination of response
time and task accuracy obviates the need for direct (explicit) questions.
Most marketers are familiar with the difficulty of changing consciously held beliefs about their brand and the apparent
insensitivity of direct image measurement techniques. It seems that respondents often cling to beliefs about brands in the
face of clear evidence that the brand has changed. What does this tell us? Does it mean, as is often argued, that it is
incredibly difficult to change how people feel about brands, or does it mean that our (direct, explicit) measurement tools
are simply not up to the job?
Both – it is extremely difficult to change people’s explicitly expressed beliefs about brands, because, when asked directly,
respondents tend to default (via System 1 heuristics) to ‘quick and easy’ associations. Response Latency has the potential
to overcome this because it relies on two key processes - binary choice and reaction time – which are central
characteristics of emotionally based decision making. Le Doux (1996) observed that the evolutionary nature of automatic
(emotional) decision making is manifested most clearly in simple binary choices – fight or flight being the most obvious.
Similarly the automatic solutions provided by our fast (heuristic based) System 1 are - because of their simple associative
nature - instant and unambiguous. Response time (or latency) is thus the most effective method we have for assessing
automaticity of associations with a stimulus.
And (as we shall see) indirect implicit measures certainly throw up quite different profiles of brands to those derived from
standard explicit questioning, and show consistency of effects over time.
USING METAPHOR TO CAPTURE AUTOMATIC (EMOTIONAL) RESPONSE
You may have noticed a consistent theme running through this discourse – of there being two ‘brains’ (in neuroscience)
and two systems (in cognitive science/behavioural economics)
In neuroscience there is a distinction between the cognitive brain (the frontal cortex), which (consciously) analyses,
reflects, calculates and makes decisions, and the emotional brain (the Limbic system), which reacts spontaneously and
intuitively. In cognitive science/behavioural economics, there is the explicit/implicit dichotomy which finds expression in
Stanovitch’s (and later Kahneman’s) System 1 & System 2 models of reasoning.
But neither neuroscience nor cognitive science argues that our two ‘brains’ (or systems) work in isolation – in fact, both
accept that there is constant communication between them. In fact, one of the most fascinating challenges is to
understand what happens at the frontier between the two, where pre-conscious impulses emerge, blinking into the light of
consciousness, as verbalised thoughts and feelings. What are the pre-cognitive processes that underpin our conscious
thoughts and utterances - allowing us to make sense of things even before we even give them conscious consideration?
A simple example is our instantaneous reaction to certain facial expressions: for example, when we see someone frown or
smile, our brains interpret meaning intuitively, without the need for considered thought. Thus our (attitudinal) response to
certain objects can be non-deliberative – there is an automatic connection between, for example, an angry face and our
feelings towards that object.
Now take a close look at the following everyday sentences:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
I have a very warm relationship with her
I feel close to him
I jumped for joy
He’s a very distant sort of person
I'm feeling down today
He’s a very cold person
Things are looking up.
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In each sentence, a feeling is expressed by means of a metaphor: warmth for affection, closeness for intimacy, jumping
(off the ground) for excitement and so on, yet we suspect that you had no conscious awareness of ‘processing’ the
metaphorical link. You probably took for granted that joy should be expressed in terms of jumping off the ground, affection
in terms of temperature, etc. In other words, you processed the meaning of these metaphors effortlessly and automatically
– without conscious effort. Had we, however, included a ‘meaningless’ metaphor, such as ‘I have a very extensional
relationship’, you might have paused, (switched over to System 2) and pondered its meaning (or lack of it).
The science of cognitive linguistics5) suggests that metaphors have the power to express emotion more vividly than literal
language because they can evoke an emotional response directly, without the need for conscious, rational consideration.
Furthermore, because many metaphors are cross-cultural in their application, they provide the basis for a universally
relevant measurement tool.
Zaltman (2008) comments: ‘‘in many ways, deep metaphors and emotions are siblings. Both are hardwired in our brains
…people experience them at some basic level worldwide.’’ He argues that ‘‘…because metaphors and emotions work hand
in hand …it may be impossible to understand the latter without the former.’’ That is certainly also the view of Kövescses
(2000), who says:
‘‘Emotion language is largely metaphorical in English and in all probability in other languages as well…. to capture the
variety of diverse and intangible emotional experiences. Methodologically, then, this (metaphorical) language is not only a
reflection of the experiences, but also creates them. Simply put, we say what we feel and we feel what we say.”
Perhaps the reason that we use metaphors so frequently to describe how we feel is that it is very difficult to describe
emotions without using a metaphor. Try taking a piece of prose and stripping out all its metaphors. You will find that what
is left seems somehow drained of emotion and feeling (which is another metaphor!).
Metaphors may appear to consist of words that appear on the linguistic surface, but, underneath this surface, their
meaning is so immediate and powerful that there is no need to compute or deduce it. Language is after all a late comer in
the evolution of human consciousness. Before we had symbolic language we had non-verbal means of expression (signs,
gesture and mime). Next came non-verbal representations (such as we see in cave drawings) and metaphor - both key
means of communicating emotion. Finally (about 6,000 years ago), symbols and language came along.
Merlin Donald (1991) proposes that man underwent a fundamental cognitive shift that set him apart from primates – not
just because of brain mass, but because of a new cognitive capacity called mimesis. It allowed man to develop a
representational form of communication based on gestures and mime. Mimetic culture allowed our ancestors to form
group structures, display emotions voluntarily, and pass on knowledge (without genetic transmission). Interestingly,
mimetic language (gestures, etc.) is still often better at expressing emotion than language. If you don’t believe us, watch
the reaction of the driver in the next car when you cut him up – you won’t need to lip read!
Metaphors might seem to be linguistic, but they are representational – usually linking something we want to convey with a
commonly understood experience – and they often have a mimetic base to them. For example, we understand the
metaphor Happy is Up because it evokes shared images (experiences) of people jumping off the ground, throwing arms in
the air, mouth turned up at corners, etc.
Indeed, the reason that metaphors are so powerful, according to leading cognitive linguistics experts such as Lakoff and
Johnson (1999) and Kövesces (2000), is that they are actually neural connections, creating automatic meaning, below the
conscious linguistic surface. The key idea here is that metaphorical thought is based on bodily experience and correlated
neural activity in the brain. This leads to the hypothesis that metaphorical meaning may become attached to certain
sensory experiences if we habitually experience a particular feeling or emotion at the same time as that experience.
This idea that metaphorical meaning is grounded in our physical experience has led cognitive linguistics experts to suggest
that the metaphors which arise from this process are universal in their application. Why? If metaphor is based on the way
the body and brain function and human beings are alike at the level of this functioning, then most of the metaphors that
people use must be fairly similar, if not universal. There is indeed a great deal of evidence to suggest this, particularly for
the so-called Primary Metaphors, which seem to be part of our unconscious mind, acquired automatically and
unconsciously, in our formative years, through the conflation of subjective and sensory experiences.
The Theory of Primary Metaphor derives from fundamental insights by Christopher Johnson (1997) and Srini Narayanan
(1997), later developed into an integrated theory by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999).
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It was Christopher Johnson (1997) who first argued that Primary Metaphors are learned (in young children) through the
conflation of subjective and sensory experiences. Thus, it is argued, affection is typically correlated with the physical
experience of warmth, because most young children experience warmth when being held affectionately in their mother’s
arms. Objectively, warmth is not even similar to affection, yet the two become conflated, and amongst very young children,
the experience is undifferentiated, so that the feeling and the sensory experience are felt to be the same.
THE MORE WE THINK AND CONSIDER, THE FURTHER WE GET FROM THE (IMPLICIT) TRUTH
Despite the broad (and growing) consensus on the importance of the implicit mind, researchers too easily default to direct
questioning - semantic differential scales, complicated association grids, Likert-scales, etc.
Direct questions usually require (or provoke) deliberation - respondents consider their response before answering - yet
the more we think and consider, the further we get from our implicit mind. Because the implicit mind is all about
automaticity, we need approaches that reflect fast, implicit associations, rather than slow, explicit processes.
In the following case study, we show how two of the most promising indirect approaches – response latency and
metaphor analysis – were harnessed to create Automatix™ and how it was used in an advertising communications test for
eBay. Automatix™ integrates two indirect approaches:
•
•
Response latency (in milliseconds) combined with task accuracy to obviate the need for explicit questions, and
minimise the scope for cognitive disturbance.
The avatar-led technology of Metaphorix®, which uses non-directive questioning and metaphoric visualisations to
engage with respondents and allow them to express their views intuitively, without needing to translate them
consciously into words.
Findings from these two strands are woven together to construct a more nuanced picture - drilling further into verbal
signifiers to expose hidden and overlooked associations and feelings, lodged in our implicit minds but not consciously
expressed.
Automatix™ thus incorporates the two defining characteristics of automatic decision making: binary choice and speed of
reaction (response latency), supplemented by consistency of response. The latter is important because, according to Lane
et al (2007) response latency measures are not sufficiently reliable for them to be based on single trial assessments instead an attitude object must be paired repeatedly with a target.
Respondents are shown a series of words and are asked to indicate (via keyboard response) whether or not these apply
to the object (in this case, a brand) as quickly as possible. Over the course of the test, the words are shown repeatedly to
respondents. This gives us three key measures:
•
•
•
Association of the word with the brand
The response time taken to make the decision about the word
Consistency of response of the association (or not) of the word with the brand
The reaction time (in milliseconds) allows us to understand the automaticity of association of different aspects of brand
equity. The quicker and more consistently you respond to a word, the stronger the implicit association. However, all
results are indexed to the mean on a respondent level to allow for differentials in individuals’ speed of response. The
results are then used to build hierarchies using an algorithm which puts the fastest (and most consistent) responses at the
top, and the slowest (and least consistent) at the bottom.
Automatix™ also employs the online technology of Metaphorix® to elicit the emotions associated with the object. It is an
online approach based on the theory of Primary Metaphor, which asserts that certain metaphors are universal and, most
importantly, are processed automatically – without conscious deliberation. The thinking behind Metaphorix® is summarised
in figure 2.
Copyright © ESOMAR 2014
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FIGURE 2. SUMMARY OF THE THINKING BEHIND METAPHORIX
®
Metaphors lend themselves to visual expression because they are inherently representational - they are about
communicating one thing by means of another. When we use metaphors, we (metaphorically) paint pictures in the mind of
the recipient.
Metaphorix® employs visual animations of Primary Metaphors which relate directly to emotions or feeling states such as
(Affection is) Warmth, (Intimacy is) Closeness, etc. At the beginning of the process, respondents select an avatar
(illustrated in figure 3) to represent them, and this avatar is then projected into a series of online animations enabling the
respondent to interact with attitude objects such as brands or advertising.
FIGURE 3.
Crucially, Metaphorix® employs non-directive questioning, encouraging respondents to use their avatar to show how they
feel, rather than tell. So, for example, a typical instruction will be: “Please move your avatar to show us how you feel about
X”. And not, “How distant or close do you feel to X?”
Figure 4 shows stills from a Brand Proximity animation in which respondents move their Avatar to show how close or
distant they feel to a brand. Respondents see no words, scales or numbers, but ‘behind’ the animation their responses are
quantified.
FIGURE 4.
An extensive international validation programme6) demonstrated how Metaphorix® animations allow respondents to
express their feelings – about brands or advertising – much more freely than do conventional Likert or semantic
differential scales. In particular, it appears that respondents are more likely to use the top end of scales and less likely to
use the middle responses.
This pattern of response was evident internationally: results indicated that when respondents were asked to use a Likert
scale to assess their feelings (warmth and proximity) towards major international brands, such as McDonalds, Apple and
Microsoft, they tended to default to ‘middling’ response, with the mode occurring at 8. When however, they did the same
Copyright © ESOMAR 2014
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exercise using Metaphorix® scales of Warmth and Brand Proximity, we see a much greater willingness to use the top end,
with the mode occurring at 10.
FIGURE 5. METAPHORIX® PRODUCES GREATER INTENSITY OF RESPONSE
Brand Proximity %
40
Metaphorix
35
30
40
%
40
Verbal scale
35
30
25
25
20
12
15
10
6
2
5
15
16
18
20
10
11
4
15
10
6
6
5
0
2
2
2
2
3
4
9
10
6
7
12
14
4
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Distant
10
1
Close
5
8
9
Distant
10
Close
Brand Warmth %
30
19
13
13
10
4
2
3
2
3
21
20
17
14
10
5
Metaphorix
25
20
15
%
30
Verbal scale
25
15
14
15
10
12
12
10
5
5
5
0
2
3
2
3
5
0
1
Cold
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Warm
1
Cold
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Warm
FIGURE 6.
CASE STUDY: HOW EBAY FOUND THAT THE TRUTH IS IMPLICIT
Conquest worked in partnership with eBay to investigate how the Automatix™ approach could explain how their customers
and non-customers respond to, and engage with, a new piece of ATL advertising, developed from an emotional strategic
brief. Because this was a departure for eBay in both strategic and creative terms, it was felt that indirect, implicit
approaches to ad testing could reveal important implicit attitudes which might otherwise remain undiscovered. In the
following sections we explain how we harnessed both response latency and metaphor to address the challenge facing
eBay:
This is how eBay described the challenge facing them in September, 2013:
“eBay turned 18 in 2013. Back in 1995 the internet was fun, exciting, different and slightly dangerous. Nowadays it’s
changed beyond all recognition. And so has eBay: professional sellers and brands have joined the platform, half of our
transactions are touched by mobile and auctions now represent a minority of our business.
We recognise there are a lot of people who have tried us in the pioneering years but who haven’t joined us on our journey.
When we talk with these former customers, we find considerable residual warmth towards eBay. The early impressions of
us being fun, human and different persist. But, for some, so does the perception that eBay is all about difficult and
potentially risky auctions. And who needs that in a world where Amazon “just works”? For others, there is confusion as
to what eBay is about nowadays. Is it a retailer or is it an auction site? None of this has been helped by our low level of
investment in ATL advertising: our TV campaign in 2012 was our first for five years in the UK.
Our new brand campaign (Wheel of Fortune) is designed to reach out to these former customers. We want to reignite
those strong positive emotional feelings that many still have for the brand – warmth, humanity, uniqueness, fun – to inspire
them to give us another try and to discover for themselves how we’ve come of age.”
Conquest tested the new TV advertising (in animatic form). The advertising features a dog and a hamster, the hamster
frantically running round a (very squeaky) wheel, while the dog gets increasingly irritated by the noise. But the dog has a
solution: he borrows his master’s tablet, orders a Ferris wheel online through eBay and has it installed in the garden.
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FIGURE 7.
The research took the form of an online test and control approach; each cell comprised 200 adults recruited nationally
within UK and were closely matched on key demographics.
Additionally, each cell split 50/50 between users and non-users of eBay:
•
•
‘eBay users’ were past 12 month users of eBay (either buying or selling) and non-rejectors of future buying or selling
on eBay
‘Non-users’ shopped online but had not bought or sold anything on eBay in the last 12 months
The control cell was not shown any advertising – only the eBay logo – while the test cell respondents were exposed to the
new advertising. The questionnaire was consistent across the two cells, comprising conventional (i.e. direct) measures as
well as Automatix™.
Results from the metaphorical Empathy animation (see figure 8) show clearly that:
1.
2.
eBay enjoys very high level of brand empathy amongst its users, but that exposure to the advertising produces an
improvement
Engagement with the brand starts at a very low level among non-users but can be improved by exposure to the
advertising
FIGURE 8. EXPOSURE TO THE ADVERTISING BUILDS FEELINGS OF EMPATHY AMONGST BOTH EBAY USERS AND NON-USERS
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We also recorded (via Metaphorix®) a significant build in warmth towards eBay amongst users; again, albeit from a much
lower start point, exposure to the advert for non-users enhanced feelings of warmth towards eBay. See figure 9.
FIGURE 9. BRAND WARMTH IS ENHANCED AFTER SEEING ‘WHEEL OF FORTUNE’
These results suggest that the new advertising has the potential to increase engagement with the brand among both users
and non-users, but does that emotional potential translate into purchase consideration? Predictably, among users,
consideration levels are already so high, that a shift in overall levels is extremely difficult to achieve. Figure 10 shows,
however, that definite commitment does strengthen among this group. Among non-users the advertising clearly has the
potential to reduce levels of rejection and increase potential consideration – albeit from a very low base.
FIGURE 10. STRONG EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENT TRANSLATES INTO PURCHASE INTENTION
Taken together then, the results thus far indicate the potential for ‘Wheel of Fortune’ to change both emotional engagement
and consideration for the better amongst both user groups. But why is this shift occurring? What are the attitude changes
that underlie these important shifts in goodwill towards the brand?
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Looking first at the eBay user group, we find that explicit testing (using conventional agree-disagree scales) only takes us
so far in understanding their response. Figure 11 shows conventionally (i.e. explicitly) measured attitudes towards eBay
across the test and control cells. The results indicate a modest effect for the advertising - while the basic hierarchy
remains more or less unchanged, ‘winning’ moves up the hierarchy while ‘loved’ enters the hierarchy, having hitherto not
been represented.
FIGURE 11. EXPLICIT TESTING INDICATES ONLY MODEST BRAND IMAGE EFFECT AMONG EBAY USERS
Yet when the same set of attributes are tested implicitly – using the response-latency based Automatix™ approach, quite a
different picture emerges (see figure 12). What is most noticeable is how three personality attributes – ‘friendly’, ‘loved’
and ‘optimistic’ – appear in the hierarchy post exposure while not featuring at all in the control condition. It would appear
that these brand associations are triggered (implicitly) by exposure to the advertising rather than to the brand alone. Once
again (as was seen in the explicit condition), ‘winning’ scores better after exposure to the advertising.
FIGURE 12. IMPLICIT MEASURES SHOW A MORE POSITIVE EFFECT ON ATTITUDES AMONG EBAY USERS
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The point here is not that implicit attitude testing produces radically different results to explicit research, but that it is able
to detect subtle attitude changes which are not easily detected by conventional means. This suggests they have potential,
therefore, to measure attitude shift in situations where the strength of the brand is such that attitudes may be entrenched
and hard to shift explicitly.
But what about situations where brand beliefs are weaker or more fluid? We know that eBay has very low engagement
among non–users and strength of attitudes (measured explicitly) reflects this. Figure 13 demonstrates that, at the explicit
level, the only strongly held belief about the brand is that it is ‘modern’ and, to some extent ‘different’ – not untypical
associations for an online company. There are also some negative associations: ‘time-consuming,’ ‘impulsive’ and ‘risky’ –
although none of these is strongly held – and it can be seen that exposure to the advertising ‘replaces’ these beliefs with
some more positive personality attributes, including ‘familiar,’ ‘friendly’ and ‘smart’.
FIGURE 13. EXPLICIT TESTING SHOWS THAT NON-USERS DEFAULT TO MODERNITY AS PREDOMINANT BRAND ASSOCIATION
Assessment of attitudes towards eBay in the implicit condition yields quite a different view of the brand, however (see
figure 14). Whereas, explicitly, the two strongest associations are ‘modern’ and ‘different’, in the implicit condition these
become ‘time consuming and ‘impulsive’. This indicates that there is a more negative ‘barrier’ to usage among non-users
than explicit testing is able to reveal. Moreover, when non-users are exposed to the advertising, these negatives disappear,
to be replaced by descriptions such as ‘innovative’ and imaginative.’
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FIGURE 14. IMPLICIT MEASURES REVEAL ‘TIME CONSUMING’ AS KEY BARRIER FOR NON-USERS. THIS IS ADDRESSED BY EXPOSURE
TO THE ADVERTISING
WHAT THE CASE STUDY SHOWS
Evaluation of the ‘Wheel of Fortune’ ad showed that it successfully conveyed its intended strategic message that you can
find whatever you want on eBay, that it’s easy to use and for everyone. It also revealed (via Metaphorix® animations) that
exposure to the ad built emotional feelings of warmth and empathy with eBay, which translated to a boost in consideration
amongst both users and non-users.
Yet, explicit testing could not fully explain these positive shifts, seeing little change in brand associations (measured via
conventional agree – disagree scales). It was only with the implicit measure that more positive brand perceptions emerged,
which were attributable to the advertising.
The Automatix™ test thus allowed us to by-pass entrenched brand beliefs to uncover what people really think and what
actually underpinned the positive impact on emotional resonance and rational consideration.
The implicit approach revealed a strong (and hitherto unknown) negative bias against eBay for being time consuming.
Moreover, it showed that negative beliefs were reduced dramatically after seeing the ad. The combined
implicit/metaphorical method thus gave eBay confidence that ATL advertising could challenge resistance among nonusers, and extend the brand’s franchise.
Brand identity can vary substantially, depending on how committed your customers are. Those with high (conscious)
awareness of the brand will hold often quite entrenched beliefs about it. Such beliefs represent a kind of default option
which is very hard to shake off.
Also, people can be hesitant to divulge negative brand perceptions, so we need to know how consumers really feel, not
just what they will admit to. Why, if non-users ‘feel’ (implicitly) that eBay is time consuming, do they not ‘admit’ it explicitly?
Implicit measures were able to show that negative perceptions amongst non-users of eBay being time-consuming and
impulsive are reduced dramatically after seeing the ad.
This research study enabled eBay to identify and understand the barriers to usage (among non-users) and also see how
an effective ATL campaign might overcome them. The challenge for a digital business like eBay is that there is an
understandable focus on the information that is readily available to them, i.e. Big Data, but much less on the effect of ATL
activity on that data. As Kahneman puts it: “What you see is all there is.”
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This research therefore provided a very important step-change in understanding the role of ATL and delivered a strong
case for the inclusion of ATL advertising in eBay’s marketing mix going forward.
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
The animatic was made into a finished film, ‘Hund & Hamster’ and aired in Germany. You can watch it at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6V9HxnAGhU
The advert succeeded in reinvigorating the brand, with a strong uplift in saliency amongst eBay non/ inactive users,
delivering an all-time high for brand consideration in this group.
The ad even went viral! In figure 15 we see that the Metaphorix® water cooler animation indicates that the advertising
achieves a high level of ‘talkability’ amongst users, exceeding top box norm, and a respectable score even amongst nonusers who are predictably less involved in the ad.
FIGURE 15. IMPLICIT MEASURES REVEAL ‘TIME CONSUMING’ AS KEY BARRIER FOR NON-USERS. THIS IS ADDRESSED BY EXPOSURE TO
THE ADVERTISING
Hank the Hamster’s regular posts on Facebook were extremely positively received and generated over 25k likes (see
figure 16).
FIGURE 16.
And YouTube views rapidly topped half a million (see figure 17).
FIGURE 17.
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CONCLUSION
This paper began by asking whether the traditional tools of market research – explicit, direct questioning – are still up to
the job of measuring brands in the 21st century. The increasingly emotional character of brands and the proliferation of
(social) media have created an environment that could not have been easily foreseen by the founders of market research.
Yet, traditional market research still dominates; we still ask questions and people still answer them, but any researcher
with a smattering of knowledge of recent developments in mind science would surely ask: Is that all there is?
The fact is, direct questions measure what they can measure and miss what they cannot; we often measure what people
can and will tell us rather than what they can’t and won’t tell us. What we capture is often thought-through or deliberative,
while what we miss is emotional and implicit.
This seems to have been blatantly obvious for at least a decade, yet relatively few have wholeheartedly embraced the
knowledge. Why? Is it simply that it’s an inconvenient truth which might undermine our industry? We’d like to think not, and
attribute it instead to the absence of a proven alternative. For a while, indirect physiological measurement
(neuromarketing) promised much but has proved something of a chimera – at least when it comes to understanding
attitudes and feelings.
The implicit mind is, of course, highly elusive, yet it is possible to measure, provided we do not fall into the trap of seeing it
as a kind of submerged version of our explicit, deliberative mind.
What modern cognitive science, neuroscience and behavioural economics have shown is that the implicit mind is not the
same as the explicit mind: it’s fast and furious, not slow and deliberate; it’s automatic, not controlled; it’s associative, not
rule-based, and, above all, it’s emotional.
So unless we use methods which reflect this difference, we fall into the trap of trying to measure implicit response with
System 2 tools. Emotions and simple heuristics exist in the implicit, non-reflective part of our minds, and once they enter
the conscious domain (of System 2), they turn into (explicit) thoughts and feelings. Direct questioning not only fails to
penetrate the implicit mind, it actually hastens the process of turning the implicit into the explicit. Why?
Because the more we think and consider, the further we get from our implicit mind.
This paper has demonstrated how response latency and metaphors can be harnessed to create tools which are nondirective and which tap into the automatic processes that underlie implicit response. And it has shown how, when used as
part of an advertising communications test, such measures can provide an insight (into implicit attitudes) denied to
conventional, direct, approaches - highlighting commercial opportunities (and barriers) that would otherwise be missed.
Because our lips are sealed (metaphorically) we cannot verbalise attitudes we don’t know we have. Measuring explicit
attitudes and feelings only takes us so far, because so much of the truth – about brands, packs, concepts and advertising –
is implicit.
ENDNOTES
1. See, for example, Du Plessis, Erik. (2005) The Advertised Mind.
2. Robert Zajonc (1980) discovered that preferences (which are simple emotional reactions) could be formed without
conscious registration of the stimuli. He found that if subjects are exposed to some novel visual patterns and then
asked to choose whether they preferred previously exposed or new patterns, they reliably preferred the pre exposed
ones, even though they were unable to consciously identify the ones they had seen before.
3. See, for example, Bargh, 1997; Chaiken, 1987; Fazio, 1990.
4. Macintosh [Mac] and Microsoft Windows-based [PC] machines) were chosen as the focal targets for these studies.
5. For a perspective on cognitive linguistics see, for example, Kövesces. Z. (2000). Metaphor and Emotion: Language,
Culture and Body in Human Feeling. Also see Lakoff. G. and Johnson. M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh.
6. See Penn (2008): Getting Animated About Emotion, ESOMAR Congress paper
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THE AUTHORS
David Penn is Founder and Managing Director, Conquest Research Ltd., United Kingdom.
Suzanne Lugthart is Research Lead, EU Customer Insight, eBay, United Kingdom.