>So like everything else in life then? For instance I just saw a TV commercial that said that Miller Lite is the best beer, but my past experience knows that that is not the case. Surely we can recognize hype and advertisements when we see them.
Not really. That's some conscious processing that you did, and that we can do -- but only to certain degree. When we go and buy stuff, the advertisments we've seen affect us, not just in what brand we'll buy, but in the very basic act of buying something over nothing, and how much we'll buy of a product.
It's a whole, much studied, field with tons of tunable parameters, from the psychology of a tv, to the height of stuff in Costo's shelves, the colors and smells inside a supermarket (and lots of stuff for web shops too), down to the $x.99 kind of pricing.
Not really. That's some conscious processing that you did, and that we can do -- but only to certain degree. When we go and buy stuff, the advertisments we've seen affect us, not just in what brand we'll buy, but in the very basic act of buying something over nothing, and how much we'll buy of a product.
It's a whole, much studied, field with tons of tunable parameters, from the psychology of a tv, to the height of stuff in Costo's shelves, the colors and smells inside a supermarket (and lots of stuff for web shops too), down to the $x.99 kind of pricing.