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The Dopamine - Impulse Buy link 85

Posted by Hemos from the buy-now!--one-click-shopping dept.
cogno64 writes "Certain stimuli in the brain, such as the smell of freshly based cookies, lead to higher levels of dopamine that remain after the stimulus is removed, leading to altered behavior through interaction with learning, memory, and executive function. The experiencer is more likely to make a purchase decision based on their heightened dopamine levels, with significant impact for internet marketers. According to research presented at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting today, the neurotransmitter dopamine continues to be released for nearly an hour after neurons are stimulated, suggesting the existence of secondary mechanisms that allow for sustained availability of dopamine in different regions of the brain including areas critical for memory consolidation, drug induced plasticity and maintaining active networks during working memory. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with learning and memory, motor control, reward perception and executive functions such as working memory, behavioral flexibility and decision making. When a novel or salient stimulus occurs, the dopamine neurons in the brain increase their firing rate, boosting the release of dopamine. The dopamine is diffused into the extracellular space of the brain until it can be transported or metabolized."
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The Dopamine - Impulse Buy link More

The Dopamine - Impulse Buy link

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  • No longer will you "just" get a cut hand when reaching inside, you will get 2ccs of pure dopamine.
    Not that you would notice with your new Apple mac and 32" monitor.

    • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not that you would notice your new Apple mac and 32" monitor with 2 cc (1 cc ~= 1 mL with water at STP) of dopamine on board.

      Mesoenteric effects begin as low as 2 mcg/(kg×min), while therapeutic doses generally range 5-20 mcg/(kg×min), where 'mcg' = microgram, since slashcode and medicolegal charting object to mu.
    • Actually, dopamine doesn't pass through the blood/brain barrier, so it would have to shoot you up with l-dopa.
  • How does one base a cookie?

  • Introducing "Smelzak" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bkeeler ( 29897 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @12:10PM (#16453749)
    ...from the same great folks that brought you "Muzak". Step into the elevator and the smell of fresh cinnamon rolls is chemically synthesized and fed into the vents. By the time you arrive in the department store you'll already be reaching for your wallet!
    • Stores already do this. You'll notice that your major department stores do not smell like defecation.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ark42 ( 522144 )
        No, most seem to smell overwhelmingly of strong chemical perfumes that border on nauseating. I particularly hate even being within 2 or 3 stores down from wherever the nail salon is in any mall as well.

  • Certain stimuli in the brain, such as the smell of freshly based cookies, lead to higher levels of dopamine that remain after the stimulus is removed, leading to altered behavior through interaction with learning, memory, and executive function. The experiencer is more likely to make a purchase decision based on their heightened dopamine levels, with significant impact for internet marketers

    So when will we stop focusing so much on video resolution and get smell-o-vision?! Just as long as there's a "smell

  • Oh, crap! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @12:13PM (#16453785) Homepage Journal
    But I always eat cookies when browsing Slashdot... hey, that explains the huge pile of overhyped LED keyboards, novelty mice, Futurama DVDs, Phantom lapboards, and iPod accesories in my office!

  • "Really, sweetie, the beer store smelled like cookies!"

  • Serotonin (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @12:18PM (#16453889) Homepage Journal
    Now if they could only come up with a product that resulted in increased serotonin levels, I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

    (Serotonin [wikipedia.org] is involved in depression and anxiety disorders.)
    • That's the whole point of Paxil, Prozac, and Wellbutrin I believe.

      IANAD but they're all called "seratonin uptake inhibitors" and the gist is they stop your brain from reabsorbing seratonin and therefore increasing the constant level found in your brain.

      If you want to get really wacky, you can take MDMA (ecstasy) and have ALL of your seratonin flood into the brain at once, getting tracers, a "bulletproof" feeling, and (to quote Ali G) the desire to dance like a prick.

      Finally, a more reliable way to incre

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 )
        ``That's the whole point of Paxil, Prozac, and Wellbutrin I believe. ...

        Finally, a more reliable way to increase your seratonin levels is through eating right and daily exercise.''

        Yes, and sunlight, certain foods (nuts, live vegetables, and sweet things, I believe), therapy, and, most importantly, talking to people!

        The problem with all these things besides the drugs is that, when you're depressed, it can be hard to do anything at all, including the things that improve your situation.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by plcurechax ( 247883 )
          Finally, a more reliable way to increase your seratonin levels is through eating right and daily exercise.''

          In healthy, unstressed people.

          Be careful how this statement is read, there is no evidence that depression is brought on by a poor diet or lack of exercise, and I don't know if an occurance of depression is considered less likely through diet and exercise (it is not 100% preventable by diet and exercise alone).

          • Re: (Score:1)

            by mrogers ( 85392 )
            (it is not 100% preventable by diet and exercise alone)
            But you'll be too tired and hungry to notice.
      • Obligatory Simpsons: Marge and Homer are talking with 2 doctors who want to give Bart "focusin" pills to treat his ADD:

        Pharm. 2: Yes, but it's not about slavery, it's about helping kids
        concentrate. This pill reduces class clownism 44%.
        Pharm. 1: With 60% less sass-mouth.
        Pharm. 2: The only thing more effective is regular exercise.
        [Homer shudders]

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by treeves ( 963993 )
        I figured he was joking and should have been modded Funny, not Insightful. Oh well.
        BTW Wellbutrin (bupropion) is not a SSRI, it affects, wait for it. . . dopamine.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by treeves ( 963993 )
          Ha. That was my 2^8th comment.
        • Wellbutrin (bupropion) is not a SSRI, it affects, wait for it. . . dopamine.

          It is a reuptake inhibitor for both dopamine and norepinephrine. I don't remember if it is doage specific (some dual action reuptake inhibitors act differently with different dosage amounts).

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Miniluv ( 165290 )
            It is indeed dosage specific. Which is why at one dosage it's Welbutrin and is used to treat depression but at another it's Zyban and used to quit smoking. I'm on the latter at the moment, and will probably be on the former once my cravings disappear.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by curunir ( 98273 ) *
        Paxil and Prozac are SSRIs, Wellbutrin is not. Wellbutrin targets norepinephrine which is why it can, in a slightly different formulation, treat smoking addiction (that formulation is sold under the name Zyban). And, just to be pedantic, it's "Selective Seratonin Reupdake Inhibitors"...

        However none of these drugs, MDMA/MDA included, result in more seratonin, they only change the way your brain deals with the seratonin you have. If you want to have more seratonin, the dietary suppliment 5-HTP is your best
        • I'm allowed to be uninformed, that's what the IANAD tag gets me!

          Additionally, I don't set policy or have any influence on either policy-making/research so. . . here's to ignorance! *quaffs Serotonin Uptake Inhibitor Potion +3*

          (thanks for the clarifications on my post - I'm not a doctor nor do I pretend to have more than a passing knowledge of pharmaceuticals. I do agree 100% with your post that we need to do more research on MDMA and remove the bias presented towards some drugs (i.e. untaxed drugs) partic

      • Lots of side effects from Paxil/Prozac/et al and they're ALL addictive. Even when they say they're not.

        I'd love to see your evident to back that claim. I don't know of any psychological addictions to any anti-depressant. Anti-anxiety drugs are a different matter (e.g. tranquilizers). Any claim to physical addiction is easily "defeated" through a simple straight forward "weaning" process.
        • A link [eatthestate.org]

          A cursory google search turned up a class action suit against Glaxo and a whole slew of links associated with it and Paxil. Mostly lawyers attempting to cash in, but the link above was one that wasn't lawsuit-oriented. I think. TBH I didn't read any of it but the headline.

          Stating that all of them are addictive was hyperbole, spurred by cynicism towards our drug-makers.

          • A cursory google search turned up a class action suit against Glaxo and a whole slew of links associated with it and Paxil. Mostly lawyers attempting to cash in, but the link above was one that wasn't lawsuit-oriented. I think. TBH I didn't read any of it but the headline.

            So plenty of claims, many involving money, but no evidence.

            With a google search I think you can also find class actions suits against Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by duguk ( 589689 )
          > simple straight forward "weaning" process.

          Then it is still addiction, I should know - I take SSRI's myself.

          There is a difference between physical dependence (characterized by symptoms of withdrawal) and psychological dependence (or simply addiction).

          SSRI's are physically dependant, they do cause withdrawal symptons. Naturally, they would though - they affect brain patterns very deeply. Though that is not to say that they are particually difficult to wean yourself off them.

          This seems an interesting stud
          • I would be interested in comparsions to Dopamine and SSRI's and will be looking around for them.

            Most GP / family doctors are still using SSRI as a first line of choice for prescribing, psychatrists are most often prescribing SNRI, and atypical anti-depressants depending on the patient.

            Wellbutrun, Effexor (sorry, US brand names) are the biggest two (market share) non-SSRI with others available as well (~8-10 in total I think).

            Don't expect dopamine pills, these are still re-uptake inhibitors that appear to wo

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by maxume ( 22995 )
        SSRI -- Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. Wikipedia appears to be reasonable:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_serotonin_r euptake_inhibitor [wikipedia.org]

        They don't change the level in your brain, but they cause what is there to have a greater effect.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by danpat ( 119101 )
      It's called "exercise". I believe Chuck Norris has a patent on it.

      http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/exercise/HQ01676 [mayoclinic.com] (see point 5)

  • Moo (Score:1)

    by Chacham ( 981 )
    Dopamine:

    Caused by information [slashdot.org].
    Creates code monkeys that actually work [slashdot.org].
    Used as a natural reward. [slashdot.org]

    IOW, reading Slashdot causes people to work, who can then be rewarded with reading more Slashdot. Or, Slashdot is the Pravda of the Digital Proletarian. Hmm, the slash is the action of the sickle, the dot looks like a star, if we could just hammer away at the idea of changing the green to read, and removing all the non-Socialist comments here.

    Unfortuantely, this latest find is probably ther work of evil capitalis

  • Be aware of subversive marketing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @12:19PM (#16453897)
    and you won't ever be a victim of impulse buying. For example, whenever I go to a mall and I smell freshly baked bread, I always remind myself that it's a synthesized flavor in a can that one of the employee periodically sprays around the entrance (go to a bread or cookie shop in a mall, I guarantee you there's no equipment there that can produce real freshly baked bread smells). Same for car dealership: it's very well known that they spray "new car scents" inside the car, even in second hand cars.

    Same for things for sale that look too clean or too well kept: I always try to picture the thing with normal everyday-use dirt on it before buying. Cars come to mind, they're never dirty when the salesman shows them to you.

    So my rule of thumbs is: if it suddenly smells good in odd places where those smells shouldn't be, or if I see things that look too good, I automatically go into "beware of impulse buying mode".

    • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      So my rule of thumbs is: if it suddenly smells good in odd places where those smells shouldn't be, or if I see things that look too good, I automatically go into "beware of impulse buying mode".

      I'll try to remember that next time I'm at the strip club!
    • The church I went to as a kid was near a bakery, resulting in the wondrous smell of fresh bread on Sunday mornings. I certainly "bought" a lot of things there that I regretted later.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by no_pets ( 881013 )
      Perhaps you are hyper-sensitive to smells such as I am. To me most purfume smells like bug spray and I would notice a freshly baked bread smell. But usually when I point out smells (such as bug spray perfume that sends me into an asthmatic fit) to people in my vicinity they most always say that they did not even notice.

      Sure, this is anecdotal evidence, but I do know that some people only subconsiously notice these smells. I wonder if these people buy after smelling freshly baked cookies.

    • Re:Be aware of subversive marketing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by quag7 ( 462196 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @12:42PM (#16454313) Homepage
      This is actually key - and not just subversive marketing but marketing in general. My own mental habit when watching television - and this is automatic; I couldn't *stop* thinking this way - is to sort of "remote view" the conversations in the advertising agency, and then reduce the commercial down to its essential elements:

      "Lifestyle. If I don't own this, I'm not cool."

      "Buy this and it will get me laid." (I salute the various body spray ads using this technique so nakedly, it was probably considered risky when first proposed - it's one thing to subtly add sexual imagery to commercials - it's another to just make a naked claim that a product will get you laid. And it's worked. Which says very little for the modern 18-24 year old male, frankly.)

      Then I picture the imagery the agency decides on, the song choice, and how it was conceived, laboratory style, to try to manipulate me.

      I apply the same mental circuits to religion, ideology, and so on.

      When this mental process becomes automatic, the desire to consume drops significantly because it generally makes me feel somewhat insulted - the usually cheap, manipulative nature of advertising and so on. Even great advertising is pretty bad if you break it down to its calculated, constituent parts.

      As Rosco P. Coltrane (how's Flash doing btw?) mentions, it's increasingly necessary to be aware of these things whenever you expose yourself to any kind of retail environment, for the reasons he lists.

      Lastly, avoid retail environments altogether unless you specifically want to buy a certain product.

      It's hard for me to get wound up about consumer culture because it really requires only a few easily-learned habits to innoculate yourself against it. Like anyone else, I buy products, but I research, especially higher-end items, to the point of analysis paralysis, before putting my money down. I take a shopping list with me to the supermarket.

      Sheriff Little of Chickasaw county agrees, btw.

      The smell of bread or cookies or whatever, will probably initially cause this thought: "mmmm cookies."

      The immediate second thought should be, "How cheap and insulting."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by eln ( 21727 ) *
        I agree with just about everything you said. In my case, though, if the smell of bread or cookies immediately makes me want to buy bread and cookies, it usually means I was hungry before I got there. If I'm already full, those smells don't have nearly the same effect on me. So, if I get a powerful urge to buy something after smelling it at the grocery store, that's usually my cue that I need to leave the store and eat something before I do my shopping. I am much more likely to buy food I don't really ne

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bcmm ( 768152 )
        I do wonder exactly who is affected by TV advertising. Is everyone aware that advertising is trying to trick them into thinking in a certain way, but are subconsciously effected by it anyway (and if so am I affected by it even though I hate seeing adverts)? Or are there people who just feel that adverts are literally intended to "advertise", i.e. helpfully inform us that a useful product is available?

        I wonder why there are absolutely no adverts which are intended to give you a good idea of why you should g

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
      In a similar vein, I'm sure the effect in discussion is exactly why there are so many irrelevant pictures of Happy Sexy People on sites that sell stuff.

      But when I see a useless picture of Happy Sexy People on a website, I'm instantly turned off. I'm not there to be happified or masturbated, I'm there to do some task, and the Happy Sexy People cue tells me that the site wants to Sell Me Something I Don't Want.

      And yes, I have very high marketing resistance :)

      • Best example of Happy Sexy People ads I've seen... when I was on a bus in Champaign, IL I saw an advertisement for a church that said, "[insert church name]: Church is not a spectator sport!" and then had three pictures of HSP faces... if there was anything else on the ad it was either too small to read or not very memorable. One of the pictures was a slightly overexposed shot of an semi-airhead-looking blonde chick that looked like her mind was totally blown by God, or by an acoustic-geetar sing-a-long ab

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Reziac ( 43301 ) *
          Oh, that's a good one... the message I get is that you're supposed to buy a house for god. Or maybe that your god is supposed to buy you a house. :D

          The HSP images that bug me the most are on Godaddy and Edison's sites. Total waste of bandwidth, plus I've seen 'em in print ads and they were a waste of ink then, now a waste of some 200k of my very limited dialup straw PER PAGE. Yet the sites don't work with images turned off, so... suffer!

  • Damn! I was really hoping that slashdot was going to give me a link where I could impulse-buy vast quantities of dopamine...
  • FTA- "...they applied tetrodotoxin (TTX), a neurotoxin that blocks the active release of dopamine, to the nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. TTX caused dopamine levels to drop..."

    Lab Rat- "you're totally bumming me out with that neurotoxin, dude."
  • My browser automatically deletes fresh cookies.
  • They'll be blasting people with the stuff on entry to their stores.
    I wonder if it also stops people paying attention as much so they don't notice the blatant mistakes all over their dockets.
  • Does this mean that Amazon will send me free cookies with a card reminding me to check out my gold box?

    If so, I'm all for it!

  • Great... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by plate_o_shrimp ( 948271 )
    After hammering me with loud TV and radio ads, assaulting my eyeballs with garish print and web ads, flooding my inbox with email ads, and littering the landscape with signs and billboards, the marketers have come up with another to try to make me buy crap I don't want. I'm pretty good at resisting, but damn I get tired of this crap in my face all day long. Just go away, dammit! :-)
    • Speaking of 'crap', there's an excellent idea to complement the encouragement that dopamine offers...
  • I will think twice now before clearing my cookies.
  • ...just get yourself addicted to coke. A few lines here and a half a gram there, and you'll find yourself on eBay selling shit so you can score more blow.
  • Forbes had an article recently about how a company is making a killing selling smells to other companies. You walk by a store and that fresh-baked cookie smell hits you and there you go, a sale is chemically forming.
    Novelty releases dopamine. I think this is why apple is the way it is. They have products that look and feel so differently.

    Info like this is really good to know so that you can analyze your own brain in various contexts in which someone is trying to manipulate you. It happens, and it is on

  • ... and suddenly it becomes obvious why the snack bar at Walmart is right there when you walk in the door, bathing your unsuspecting synapses in popcorn, hotdog, and cotton candy smells.

    Mmmm, dopamine. And look, a plastic lawn chair at just $18.95!

  • Go ahead (Score:4, Insightful)

    by surfcow ( 169572 ) on Monday October 16, 2006 @01:59PM (#16455545) Homepage
    Go ahead. Click that moderate button. You know you want to.

  • Certain stimuli in the brain, such as the smell of freshly based cookies, lead to higher levels of dopamine that remain after the stimulus is removed

    Um, yes. It's called hunger. Hunger is a feeling brought on by external stimuli (smell, sight, etc.) or internal stimuli (the thought of food, etc.). This does not necessarily generalize into whether or not someone will buy the newest Barbie upon sight.

  • This phenomenon has been used in stores and most notably shopping malls for a long time. Specific music and specific scents increase the amount of sales significally.

    Article about study: http://ur.rutgers.edu/medrel/viewArticle.html?Arti cleID=4506 [rutgers.edu]

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