Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

Medical Technology has become far more advanced over the past decade.  People from past generations could only imagine images of what the human body let alone the brain looks like.  Thanks to innovations in science, we now have a far greater understanding of the human mind and all its factors like the conscious and subconscious.  Not only do we understand how the brain works, but we have begun to understand what really makes the human brain "tick" as I say.  Artwork and Neuroscience have a very strange relationship.

Advertisers play tricks on the human brain constantly through the use of visually pleasing and aesthetic artwork.  One really unexpected way "Heineken" has been tricking, rather persuading people is in their logo.  According to Marc Andrews, a creative artist and Scientist in Amsterdam, each of the three "e's" in Heineken are slightly slanted backwards giving the concept of three toothless smiles. This may not seem like a lot, but a small change like this gives the consumer a different relationship with the product and actually makes it more visually pleasing which leads to more future purchases.  What is so interesting about this is that this subtle change isn't really noticed by the conscious, but rather the subconscious of your mind which prompts you to buy the product.

The 3 "E's" in Heineken
are Slanted to Represent a
Smile

Another example of advertisers taking advantage of the way we think is when we buy tickets for events, plane rides, hotels, etc.  Websites will send alerts to consumers implying that they are low on tickets.  This will cause the brain to think that you only have so much time to purchase when in fact the website is just tricking you to buy rather than think about it.  Ways that companies take advantage of people's thoughts can be scary to think about.

The Website Alerts That Their is only 1 Ticket Left When
Most Likely Their are More

Their are many more examples like the one above of advertisers taking advantage of the human mind.      Other than advertisements, game producers use this mentality to invent new games.  One such game, which has become a worldwide rave recently, is "Fortnite." Not only is the game fun to play, but the producers utilize bright colors and pleasing noises to continue to attract and keep players in the game.  Not only that, the game producers continue to release new costumes in the game.  Each one different and more colorful than the last.  By using crazy colors and sounds, the game is extremely pleasing, addicting, and fun to play.   This game is a massive example of ways in which artwork and neuroscience are being combined to create products that are enjoyable because it is attractive to the brain.

The Game Uses Colorful Images and Bold Fonts on the Cover
to AttractUsers into Playing the Game

Ways in which we neuroscience and artwork have become interrelated has been around for thousands of years yet we have only now really begun to understand how and what makes the brain work.  We are only just starting to see the inner workings of the brain and we are continuing to create new innovations to help further understand the human mind.   

Works Cited

Conway, Bevil R. "Color consilience: color through the lens of art practice, history, philosophy, and neuroscience." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1251.1 (2012): 77-94.

Huang, Mengfei. "The neuroscience of art." Stanford Journal of Neuroscience 2.1 (2009): 24-26.

Hyman, John. "Art and neuroscience." Beyond mimesis and convention. Springer, Dordrecht, 2010.

Stinson, Elizabeth. “12 Hidden Tricks Advertisers Use to Sell You Stuff.” Wired, Conde Nast, 3 June 2017, www.wired.com/2014/06/5-hidden-visual-tricks-advertisers-use-to-sell-you/. 

Zeki, Semir, and John Nash. Inner vision: An exploration of art and the brain. Vol. 415. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.