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  1. #1
    Forum Regular gonefishin's Avatar
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    NY Times; Coke Vs Pepsi article

    did anyone read this article? does any either have a copy or know where I can get one?


    I believe it was in the NYTimes about 3-4 weeks ago...but I'm not sure. It sounded like it may have been a good read on how the mind works. Not only when subjected to DBT tests, but also after your told!


    any help is appreciated...thanks!
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    Forum Regular Rikki's Avatar
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    I'd like to see that test too. Of course unlike cables or wire, there actually IS a difference between Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi tastes much sweeter than Coke. They could never fool me on that one.
    Last edited by Rikki; 03-31-2004 at 11:31 AM.

  3. #3
    Forum Regular gonefishin's Avatar
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    Hi Rikki,

    I haven't read the article myself, I've only heard it summarized.


    The article written didn't seem to be classic contest of which you prefer, or even if you could distinguish one from the other while "blindfolded". I understood an explanation of the article to be that a neurologist performed the study.

    At first the subjects were asked which they prefer, coke or pepsi. Then the first set of test were performed, blind. While the person drank each glass of unknown soda their brain waves were studied and just which part o the brain was most active while the subject tasted the first soda. After this...the same thing was repeated for the remaining soda. At the end of this blinded test, they found that pepsi had actually stimulated areas of the brain that are tied to happiness and pleasure more often than Coke. This was found even in people who stated they preferred Coke...so...maybe they didn't (just kiddin'...that isn't the point)
    Now, they performed this same exact test on the same people...but this time they let the people know which they were drinking. Many of the subjects who initially claimed to prefer coke, but had positive pleasurable brain stimulation while drinking pepsi had an entirely different response once they told they were indeed drinking Coke. The most active area of the brian which was active was the part that deals with memories...in these people the pleasurable area was as well stimulated higher now too.

    Again, I didn't read the article...but only heard it summarized. I'd actually love to read the entire paper as well (if someone can help). this may be an interesting article and/or paper.


    take care,
    dan
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    Now this is really frightening.

    Quote Originally Posted by gonefishin
    did anyone read this article? does any either have a copy or know where I can get one?


    I believe it was in the NYTimes about 3-4 weeks ago...but I'm not sure. It sounded like it may have been a good read on how the mind works. Not only when subjected to DBT tests, but also after your told!


    any help is appreciated...thanks!
    dan
    Should tests like this become common, it may be proved conclusively and in accordance with proper scientific protocol that some of us apparently living humans demonstrate no brain activity whatsoever.

  5. #5
    Forum Regular Tony_Montana's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rikki
    Of course unlike cables or wire, there actually IS a difference between Coke and Pepsi. Pepsi tastes much sweeter than Coke.
    I have to agree, Pepsi is not only sweeter, but it doesn't taste as sharp as Coke. I think I could tell the difference if DB test it
    "Say Hello To My Little Friend."

  6. #6
    Forum Regular BrianUDLaw's Avatar
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    Is this what you're looking for?

    The New York Times, October 26, 2003

    By Clive Thompson

    When he isn't pondering the inner workings of the mind, Read Montague, a 43-year-old neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine, has been known to contemplate the other mysteries of life: for instance, the Pepsi Challenge. In the series of TV commercials from the 70's and 80's that pitted Coke against Pepsi in a blind taste test, Pepsi was usually the winner. So why, Montague asked himself not long ago, did Coke appeal so strongly to so many people if it didn't taste any better?

    Over several months this past summer, Montague set to work looking for a scientifically convincing answer. He assembled a group of test subjects and, while monitoring their brain activity with an M.R.I. machine, recreated the Pepsi Challenge. His results confirmed those of the TV campaign: Pepsi tended to produce a stronger response than Coke in the brain's ventral putamen, a region thought to process feelings of reward. (Monkeys, for instance, exhibit activity in the ventral putamen when they receive food for completing a task.) Indeed, in people who preferred Pepsi, the ventral putamen was five times as active when drinking Pepsi than that of Coke fans when drinking Coke.

    In the real world, of course, taste is not everything. So Montague tried to gauge the appeal of Coke's image, its "brand influence," by repeating the experiment with a small variation: this time, he announced which of the sample tastes were Coke. The outcome was remarkable: almost all the subjects said they preferred Coke. What's more, the brain activity of the subjects was now different. There was also activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, an area of the brain that scientists say governs high-level cognitive powers. Apparently, the subjects were meditating in a more sophisticated way on the taste of Coke, allowing memories and other impressions of the drink -- in a word, its brand -- to shape their preference.

    Pepsi, crucially, couldn't achieve the same effect. When Montague reversed the situation, announcing which tastes were of Pepsi, far fewer of the subjects said they preferred Pepsi. Montague was impressed: he had demonstrated, with a fair degree of neuroscientific precision, the special power of Coke's brand to override our taste buds.

    Measuring brand influence might seem like an unusual activity for a neuroscientist, but Montague is just one of a growing breed of researchers who are applying the methods of the neurology lab to the questions of the advertising world. Some of these researchers, like Montague, are purely academic in focus, studying the consumer mind out of intellectual curiosity, with no corporate support. Increasingly, though, there are others -- like several of the researchers at the Mind of the Market Laboratory at Harvard Business School -- who work as full-fledged "neuromarketers," conducting brain research with the help of corporate financing and sharing their results with their sponsors. This summer, when it opened its doors for business, the BrightHouse Institute for Thought Sciences in Atlanta became the first neuromarketing firm to boast a Fortune 500 consumer-products company as a client. (The client's identity is currently a secret.) The institute will scan the brains of a representative sample of its client's prospective customers, assess their reactions to the company's products and advertising and tweak the corporate image accordingly.

    Not long ago, M.R.I. machines were used solely for medical purposes, like diagnosing strokes or discovering tumors. But neuroscience has reached a sort of cocky adolescence; it has become routine to read about researchers tackling every subject under the sun, placing test subjects in M.R.I. machines and analyzing their brain activity as they do everything from making moral choices to praying to appreciating beauty. Paul C. Lauterbur, a chemist who shared this year's Nobel Prize in medicine for his contribution in the early 70's to the invention of the M.R.I. machine, notes how novel the uses of his invention have become. "Things are getting a lot more subtle than we'd ever thought," he says. It seems only natural that the commercial world has finally caught on. "You don't have to be a genius to say, 'My God, if you combine making the can red with making it less sweet, you can measure this in a scanner and see the result,"' Montague says. "If I were Pepsi, I'd go in there and I'd start scanning people."

    The neuroscience wing at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta is the epicenter of the neuromarketing world. Like most medical wards, it is filled with an air of quiet, antiseptic tension. On a recent visit, in the hallway outside an M.R.I. room, a patient milled around in a light blue paper gown. A doctor on a bench flipped through a clipboard and talked in soothing tones to a man in glasses, a young woman anxiously clutching his arm.

    It was not a place where you would expect to encounter slick marketing research. And when Justine Meaux, a research scientist for the BrightHouse Institute, came out to greet me, she did seem strangely out of place. Clicking along in strappy sandals, with a tight sleeveless top and purple toenail polish, she looked more like a chic TV producer than a neuroscientist, which she is. Her specialty, as she explained, is "the neural dynamics of the perception and production of rhythmic sensorimotor patterns" -- though these days she spends her professional life thinking about shopping. "I'm really getting into reading all this business stuff now, learning about campaigns, branding," she said, leading me down the hallway to the M.R.I. chamber that the Institute uses. Three years ago, after earning her Ph.D., she decided she wanted to apply brain scanning to everyday problems and was intrigued by marketing as a "practical application of psychology," as she put it. She told me that she admired the "Intel Inside" advertising campaign, with its TV spots showing dancing men in body suits. "Intel actually branded the inside of a computer," she marveled. "They took the most abstract thing you can imagine and figured out a way to make people identify with it."

    When we reached the M.R.I. control room, Clint Kilts, the scientific director of the BrightHouse Institute, was fiddling away at a computer keyboard. A professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory, Kilts began working with Meaux in 2001. Meaux had learned that Kilts and a group of marketers were founding the BrightHouse Institute, and she joined their team, becoming perhaps the world's first full-time neuromarketer. Kilts is confident that there will soon be room for other full-time careers in neuromarketing. "You will actually see this being part of the decision-making process, up and down the company," he predicted. "You are going to see more large companies that will have neuroscience divisions."

    The BrightHouse Institute's techniques are based, in part, on an experiment that Kilts conducted earlier this year. He gathered a group of test subjects and asked them to look at a series of commercial products, rating how strongly they liked or disliked them. Then, while scanning their brains in an M.R.I. machine, he showed them pictures of the products again. When Kilts looked at the images of their brains, he was struck by one particular result: whenever a subject saw a product he had identified as one he truly loved -- something that might prompt him to say, "That's just so me!" -- his brain would show increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex.

    Kilts was excited, for he knew that this region of the brain is commonly associated with our sense of self. Patients with damage in this area of the brain, for instance, often undergo drastic changes in personality; in one famous case, a mild-mannered 19th-century railworker named Phineas Gage abruptly became belligerent after an accident that destroyed his medial prefrontal cortex. More recently, M.R.I. studies have found increased activity in this region when people are asked if adjectives like "trustworthy" or "courageous" apply to them. When the medial prefrontal cortex fires, your brain seems to be engaging, in some manner, with what sort of person you are. If it fires when you see a particular product, Kilts argues, it's most likely to be because the product clicks with your self-image.

    This result provided the BrightHouse Institute with an elegant tool for testing marketing campaigns and brands. An immediate, intuitive bond between consumer and product is one that every company dreams of making. "If you like Chevy trucks, it's because that has become the larger gestalt of who you self-attribute as," Kilts said, using psychology-speak. "You're a Chevy guy." With the help of neuromarketers, he claims, companies can now know with certainty whether their products are making that special connection.

    To demonstrate their technique, Kilts and Meaux offered to stick my head in the M.R.I. machine. They laid me down headfirst in the coffinlike cylinder and scurried out to the observation room. "Here's what I want you to do," Meaux said, her voice crackling over an intercom. "I'm going to show you a bunch of images of products and activities -- and I want you to picture yourself using them. Don't think about whether you like them or not. Just put yourself in the scene."

    I peered up into a mirror positioned over my head, and she began flashing pictures. There were images of a Hummer, a mountain bike, a can of Pepsi. Then a Lincoln Navigator, Martha Stewart, a game of basketball and dozens more snapshots of everyday consumption. I imagined piloting the Hummer off-road, playing a game of pickup basketball, swigging the Pepsi. (I was less sure what to do with Martha Stewart.)

    After about 15 minutes, Kilts pulled me out, and I joined him at a bank of computers. "Look here," he said, pointing to a screen that showed an image of a brain in cross sections. He pointed to a bright yellow spot on the right side, in the somatosensory cortex, an area that shows activity when you emulate sensory experience -- as when I imagined what it would be like to drive a Hummer. If a marketer finds that his product is producing a response in this region of the brain, he can conclude that he has not made the immediate, instinctive sell: even if a consumer has a positive attitude toward the product, if he has to mentally "try it out," he isn't instantly identifying with it.

    Kilts stabbed his finger at another glowing yellow dot near the top of the brain. It was the magic spot -- the medial prefrontal cortex. If that area is firing, a consumer isn't deliberating, he said: he's itching to buy. "At that point, it's intuitive. You say: 'I'm going to do it. I want it.' "

    The consuming public has long had an uneasy feeling about scientists who dabble in marketing. In 1957, Vance Packard wrote "The Hidden Persuaders," a book about marketing that featured harsh criticism of "psychology professors turned merchandisers." Marketers, Packard worried, were using the resources of the social sciences to understand consumers' irrational and emotional urges -- the better to trick them into increased product consumption. In rabble-rousing prose, Packard warned about subliminal advertising and cited a famous (though, it turned out, bogus) study about a movie theater that inserted into a film several split-second frames urging patrons to drink Coke.

    In truth, marketers only wish they had that much control. If anything, corporations tend to look slightly askance at their admen, because there's not much convincing evidence that advertising works as well as promised. John Wanamaker, a department-store magnate in the late 19th century, famously quipped that half the money he spent on advertising was wasted, but that he didn't know which half. In their quest for a more respectable methodology -- or perhaps more important, the appearance of one -- admen have plundered one scientific technique after another. Demographic studies have profiled customers by analyzing their age, race or neighborhood; telephone surveys have queried semi-randomly selected strangers to see how the public at large viewed a company's product.

    Advertising's main tool, of course, has been the focus group, a classic technique of social science. Marketers in the United States spent more than $1 billion last year on focus groups, the results of which guided about $120 billion in advertising. But focus groups are plagued by a basic flaw of human psychology: people often do not know their own minds. Joey Reiman is the C.E.O. of BrightHouse, an Atlanta marketing firm, and a founding partner in the BrightHouse Institute; over years of producing marketing concepts for companies like Coca-Cola and Red Lobster, he has come to the conclusion that focus groups are ultimately less about gathering hard data and more about pretending to have concrete justifications for a hugely expensive ad campaign. "The sad fact is, people tell you what you want to hear, not what they really think," he says. "Sometimes there's a focus-group bully, a loudmouth who's so insistent about his opinion that it influences everyone else. This is not a science; it's a circus."

    In contrast, M.R.I. scanning offers the promise of concrete facts -- an unbiased glimpse at a consumer's mind in action. To an M.R.I. machine, you cannot misrepresent your responses. Your medial prefrontal cortex will start firing when you see something you adore, even if you claim not to like it. "Let's say I show you Playboy," Kilts says, "and you go, 'Oh, no, no, no!' Really? We could tell you actually like it."

    Other neuromarketers have demonstrated that we react to products in ways that we may not be entirely conscious of. This year, for instance, scientists working with DaimlerChrysler scanned the brains of a number of men as they looked at pictures of cars and rated them for attractiveness. The scientists found that the most popular vehicles -- the Porsche- and Ferrari-style sports cars -- triggered activity in a section of the brain called the fusiform face area, which governs facial recognition. "They were reminded of faces when they looked at the cars," says Henrik Walter, a psychiatrist at the University of Ulm in Germany who ran the study. "The lights of the cars look a little like eyes."

    Neuromarketing may also be able to suss out the distinction between advertisements that people merely like and those that are actually effective -- a difference that can be hard to detect from a focus group. A neuromarketing study in Australia, for instance, demonstrated that supershort, MTV-style jump cuts -- indeed, any scenes shorter than two seconds -- aren't as likely to enter the long-term memory of viewers, however bracing or aesthetically pleasing they may be.

    Still, many scientists are skeptical of neuromarketing. The brain, critics point out, is still mostly an enigma; just because we can see neurons firing doesn't mean we always know what the mind is doing. For all their admirable successes, neuroscientists do not yet have an agreed-upon map of the brain. "I keep joking that I could do this Gucci shoes study, where I'd show people shoes I think are beautiful, and see whether women like them," says Elizabeth Phelps, a professor of psychology at New York University. "And I'll see activity in the brain. I definitely will. But it's not like I've found 'the shoe center of the brain."' James Twitchell, a professor of advertising at the University of Florida, wonders whether neuromarketing isn't just the next stage of scientific pretense on the part of the advertising industry. "Remember, you have to ask the client for millions, millions of dollars," he says. "So you have to say: 'Trust me. We have data. We've done these neurotests. Go with us, we know what we're doing."' Twitchell recently attended an advertising conference where a marketer discussed neuromarketing. The entire room sat in awe as the speaker suggested that neuroscience will finally crack open the mind of the shopper. "A lot of it is just garbage," he says, "but the garbage is so powerful."

    In response to his critics, Kilts plans to publish the BrightHouse research in an accredited academic journal. He insisted to me that his primary allegiance is to science; BrightHouse's techniques are "business done in the science method," he said, "not science done in the business method." And as he sat at his computer, calling up a 3-D picture of a brain, it was hard not to be struck, at the very least, by the seriousness of his passion. There, on the screen, was the medial prefrontal cortex, juggling our conscious thinking. There was the amygdala, governing our fears, buried deep in the brain. These are sights that he said still inspire in him feelings of wonder. "When you sit down and you're watching -- for the first time in the history of mankind -- how we process complex primary emotions like anger, it's amazing," he said. "You're like, there, look at that: that's anger, that's pleasure. When you see that roll off the workstation, you never look back." You just keep going, it seems, until you hit Madison Avenue.

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    Thanks for posting the article.

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    Quote Originally Posted by gonefishin
    Hi Rikki,

    I haven't read the article myself, I've only heard it summarized.


    The article written didn't seem to be classic contest of which you prefer, or even if you could distinguish one from the other while "blindfolded". I understood an explanation of the article to be that a neurologist performed the study.

    At first the subjects were asked which they prefer, coke or pepsi. Then the first set of test were performed, blind. While the person drank each glass of unknown soda their brain waves were studied and just which part o the brain was most active while the subject tasted the first soda. After this...the same thing was repeated for the remaining soda. At the end of this blinded test, they found that pepsi had actually stimulated areas of the brain that are tied to happiness and pleasure more often than Coke. This was found even in people who stated they preferred Coke...so...maybe they didn't (just kiddin'...that isn't the point)
    Now, they performed this same exact test on the same people...but this time they let the people know which they were drinking. Many of the subjects who initially claimed to prefer coke, but had positive pleasurable brain stimulation while drinking pepsi had an entirely different response once they told they were indeed drinking Coke. The most active area of the brian which was active was the part that deals with memories...in these people the pleasurable area was as well stimulated higher now too.

    Again, I didn't read the article...but only heard it summarized. I'd actually love to read the entire paper as well (if someone can help). this may be an interesting article and/or paper.


    take care,
    dan
    I didn't read it but sounds interesting. Wonder if they accounted for wich product was served first as that matters too if you only do 2 trials.
    mtrycrafts

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    Forum Regular gonefishin's Avatar
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    BrianUDLaw,

    that's the article. thanks a bunch!



    mtry, I'm not sure if they accounted for who went first when...or not??? When I heard the guy referring to this article on the radio (in my truck)...I chuckled to myself and thought...boy, would mtry love to hear this
    I was actually surprised my summary of another persons summary of the article he read was actually as close to being accurate as it was. I figured it would have been further off. I'd still love to read any other information on articles like this...interesting stuff



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    Music Junkie E-Stat's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tony_Montana
    I have to agree, Pepsi is not only sweeter, but it doesn't taste as sharp as Coke. I think I could tell the difference if DB test it
    One of the differences is that Coke contains some nutmeg.

    rw

  11. #11
    RGA
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    I participated in such a test a decade ago but it was 3 drinks: Coke, Pepsi and brand X. Brand X was a new company like a Presidents choice...the Cola product for cheaper. They asked which was which to see if I could tell the difference and then asked which I liked best. I could tell the difference between each of them and could name coke and pepsi with ease. I'd be surprised if you couldn't as neither tastes remotely alike IMO. When i drank Coke my teeth would get gritty when grinding them. Presumably woman should do better than men in these tests because they have a heightened sense of smell. And smell is a part of the tasting process.

    I found the brain measurements extremely interesting. I would like to see such a test in audio DBTs. Listening to music in a non testing enviroment versus same person's scan in the testing environment and the decision factors. In fact with today's technology this should be used. Too bad psychologists who should be the beacon of validity are not the ones running the tests - instead we have non scientific hacks claled engineers doing it - oh well

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    Forum Regular gonefishin's Avatar
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    I'd agree that coke can be distinguished from Pepsi easily...they do taste different. But this isn't what I find interesting about the article. What's interesting is the way sighted tests may be flawed. As I understand it...this is not at all comparable to "the placebo effect"...or simply perceiving something that you would like to be present. This is your brain actually over running it's subjective perception because of certain memories you may have or because of other "feelings" you have toward the product in question.


    Hopefully I'll find some more on the subject
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    Quote Originally Posted by gonefishin
    I'd agree that coke can be distinguished from Pepsi easily...they do taste different. But this isn't what I find interesting about the article. What's interesting is the way sighted tests may be flawed. As I understand it...this is not at all comparable to "the placebo effect"...or simply perceiving something that you would like to be present. This is your brain actually over running it's subjective perception because of certain memories you may have or because of other "feelings" you have toward the product in question.
    This has a been a main point by cable naysayers. People should acknowledge that a priori information affects subjective assessments.

    Choosing between Coke or Pepsi or between different brands of beer is not a life-altering decision. However, people choosing between a $10 cable and a $500 cable might want to pay slightly more attention to how they assess any improvements. That's an expensive decision for a lot of people.

    Of course, people could just say I have a fancy cable and I'm happy with my sound and everybody could go home without anyone getting hurt. But some feel the need to defend their position.
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    RGA
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    Quote Originally Posted by gonefishin
    I'd agree that coke can be distinguished from Pepsi easily...they do taste different. But this isn't what I find interesting about the article. What's interesting is the way sighted tests may be flawed. As I understand it...this is not at all comparable to "the placebo effect"...or simply perceiving something that you would like to be present. This is your brain actually over running it's subjective perception because of certain memories you may have or because of other "feelings" you have toward the product in question.
    Hopefully I'll find some more on the subject
    Unfortunately not everyone can tell the difference between the two drinks. I didn't see in the article - or I can't remember how many people were affected by the Pepsi drink itself and then by the visual cues.

    And a side note - the senses work in tandem...and not separately. The brain sorts out information. Which is why people even though they believe A is different from B sighted and can't do it blind but go back to sighted still will pay extra for A. Becuase they magically hear the difference again.

    The Coke demo shows that SEEING the coke can basically triggerred the Happy thoughts that Pepsi triggerred. The order of drinks is important here too - was their a palet cleaner used before each drink...the initial sugar rush of the first drink etc?

    I can't argue for or against cables because the only listening session I was involved in was with a MIT cable...it sounded worse than the cheap cord...but I have to concede it sounded different...not hard to deliberately make something sound different. And since it isn't hard and it's in their best interest to do it --- well??? Better? No! Different? Should be plausible.

    Interestingly, one of these cable makers has made a test disc. They recorded the same section of song with the exact volume level through several different cable. This allows for instantaneous A/B switching with the only change being the cable - not level. Trouble is the stupid disc before each songs says "now up so and so cables."

    This, while not recorded right telling you the name, can be adapted by some techy on this forum to record the same passage over and over with sevral wires without the saying when. A great tool with no delay. The trouble with the comparitor box is that it has a different cable inside the box. I'm not a cable supporter AT ALL - but it seems to me thatif we're being good little scientists and we're testing CABLE properties the bos has to have the same cable passed through the box to switch back and forth...and such boxes are impossible to make if testing two cables of totally different materials (Of course my anti cable side would say the same for the cable inside the amplifier cd player turntable and speakers (which are not the same).

    Naturally it is a cable maker who made the disc - Wireworld comparing their own cables and some of the competitors as well as cheap Belding wires - level matched with the same recording the differences are apparently quite substantail. The CD is also a CD Rom and shows you the measured difference while the song is playing as well.

    Well it would be interesting for someone to copy the cd WITHOUT the voice telling you which cable was up...and then determining if people could hear the difference. Such a tool is the BEST for making any credible test of cables.

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    Forum Regular gonefishin's Avatar
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    [QUOTE]And a side note - the senses work in tandem...and not separately. The brain sorts out information. Which is why people even though they believe A is different from B sighted and can't do it blind but go back to sighted still will pay extra for A. Becuase they magically hear the difference again.

    The Coke demo shows that SEEING the coke can basically triggerred the Happy thoughts that Pepsi triggerred. The order of drinks is important here too - was their a palet cleaner used before each drink...the initial sugar rush of the first drink etc?QUOTE]


    RGA, no. Seeing the coke can doesn't also trigger the same happy thoughts that Pepsi did. It wasn't the same at all.

    Using brand recognition with coke triggered portions of the brain that are associated with memories...which trumped...or over rode the subjective "happy" area of the brain. Much much different. Much more interesting too!
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Unfortunately not everyone can tell the difference between the two drinks. I didn't see in the article - or I can't remember how many people were affected by the Pepsi drink itself and then by the visual cues.

    And a side note - the senses work in tandem...and not separately. The brain sorts out information. Which is why people even though they believe A is different from B sighted and can't do it blind but go back to sighted still will pay extra for A. Becuase they magically hear the difference again.

    The Coke demo shows that SEEING the coke can basically triggerred the Happy thoughts that Pepsi triggerred. The order of drinks is important here too - was their a palet cleaner used before each drink...the initial sugar rush of the first drink etc?

    I can't argue for or against cables because the only listening session I was involved in was with a MIT cable...it sounded worse than the cheap cord...but I have to concede it sounded different...not hard to deliberately make something sound different. And since it isn't hard and it's in their best interest to do it --- well??? Better? No! Different? Should be plausible.

    Interestingly, one of these cable makers has made a test disc. They recorded the same section of song with the exact volume level through several different cable. This allows for instantaneous A/B switching with the only change being the cable - not level. Trouble is the stupid disc before each songs says "now up so and so cables."

    This, while not recorded right telling you the name, can be adapted by some techy on this forum to record the same passage over and over with sevral wires without the saying when. A great tool with no delay. The trouble with the comparitor box is that it has a different cable inside the box. I'm not a cable supporter AT ALL - but it seems to me thatif we're being good little scientists and we're testing CABLE properties the bos has to have the same cable passed through the box to switch back and forth...and such boxes are impossible to make if testing two cables of totally different materials (Of course my anti cable side would say the same for the cable inside the amplifier cd player turntable and speakers (which are not the same).

    Naturally it is a cable maker who made the disc - Wireworld comparing their own cables and some of the competitors as well as cheap Belding wires - level matched with the same recording the differences are apparently quite substantail. The CD is also a CD Rom and shows you the measured difference while the song is playing as well.

    Well it would be interesting for someone to copy the cd WITHOUT the voice telling you which cable was up...and then determining if people could hear the difference. Such a tool is the BEST for making any credible test of cables.
    I have a copy of the Wireworld CD you are talking about.There probably are ways to delete or conceal the identifying messages so you can set up a blinded listening test for the cable recordings. I haven't listened to the disc much, as I find doing so tedious, but so far I can't tell the recordings apart. I will not be motivated to find a way to do blinded listening until I can hear differences during sighted listening.

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by pctower
    it may be proved conclusively and in accordance with proper scientific protocol that some of us apparently living humans demonstrate no brain activity whatsoever.
    Nope, I don't see how that would be possible unless it is followed by brain dead declaration. I guess machines can keep you alive after brain dead.
    mtrycrafts

  18. #18
    RGA
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    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    I have a copy of the Wireworld CD you are talking about.There probably are ways to delete or conceal the identifying messages so you can set up a blinded listening test for the cable recordings. I haven't listened to the disc much, as I find doing so tedious, but so far I can't tell the recordings apart. I will not be motivated to find a way to do blinded listening until I can hear differences during sighted listening.
    Well UHF mag were the ones discussing it...they have quite a good reference system - what they hear in their room with their high end kit may be different that what we get in largely untreated rooms with not high end gear...and of course the drawback even with that disc is that cable gurus will complain that listening to a MIT cable portion on cd and then running zip cord to your speakers would dull the MIT effect.

    You could get rid of voices by recording it to tape - then record off the voice to another tape - and then record back to cd. Regardless - this wire on cd makes the fastest transition time between a wide array of cables.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by RGA
    Well UHF mag were the ones discussing it...they have quite a good reference system - what they hear in their room with their high end kit may be different that what we get in largely untreated rooms with not high end gear...and of course the drawback even with that disc is that cable gurus will complain that listening to a MIT cable portion on cd and then running zip cord to your speakers would dull the MIT effect.

    You could get rid of voices by recording it to tape - then record off the voice to another tape - and then record back to cd. Regardless - this wire on cd makes the fastest transition time between a wide array of cables.
    I don't think my system is as good as UHF magazine's reference system, so differences they hear may not be audible to me. Hmmm? Does not hearing differences in the cable recordings imply a weakness in my hearing, a weakness in my system, or both?

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by okiemax
    I don't think my system is as good as UHF magazine's reference system, so differences they hear may not be audible to me. Hmmm? Does not hearing differences in the cable recordings imply a weakness in my hearing, a weakness in my system, or both?

    Not at all. How do you we know UHF tests are reliable?
    mtrycrafts

  21. #21
    RGA
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtrycraft
    Not at all. How do you we know UHF tests are reliable?
    Ahh but UHF nor okiemax has done a test(nor has either claimed to) - nor to my knowledge has anyone done a test in this manner. I don't have the disc in question...nor shuld we rely on Wireworld since they would/could deliberately make the cables sound different.

    I mentioned an obvious advantage with recording the same medium onto a disc through several different cables - theoretically you could have a hundred+ cables all level matched on one cd playing one after another. Preferably a complete piece of music one after another. Then have the old brain hooked up for scan and see what happens.

    Obie wasn't insulting you there because you may be quite right - but chances are you don't have the same equipment same room and same ears they have right? And since no one tested it in relevant trial sizes no one knows(regarding this SPECIFIC test anywho).

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    Big Brother is manipulating you................

    BrianUDLaw,

    thanks for posting that interesting article.

    Is it just my natural paranoia or does this scare the he** out of anyone else besides me?

    As if cookies, spam and targeted popup ads sneaking into my computer were not good enough, now I have to contend with researchers peering into my brains. And being the good conspiracy theorist....., how long from advertisers making money from knowing people's neurological responses, to manipulating a physiological/psychological response for marketing and sales, to governments using it to manipulate for control people? Move over George Orwell.

    On the other hand, one might suspect some companies of already using such a device and data. Might explain a lot. Why just yesterday my sister went out and bought a Bose Lifestyle system.......

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