Brain Rules - Senses

Summary

The video explores the McGurk effect, a fascinating auditory illusion showing how our senses, particularly vision and sound, work together to shape perception. It demonstrates how visual cues can alter what we hear. The video emphasizes that when multiple senses are stimulated, like smell or sound, the brain encodes and remembers more information. An example from Starbucks is used to show how sensory integration impacts business, highlighting the importance of maintaining a strong coffee aroma to enhance the customer experience and brand perception.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Brain Rule Number Nine emphasizes the importance of sensory integration for enhanced learning.
• 👂 The McGurk Effect demonstrates how auditory and visual information can combine to create a different perception.
• 👀 When watching lips say 'gaga' and hearing 'da da da', the brain perceives 'ba ba ba', illustrating multimodal perception.
• 🔊 The McGurk Effect is an auditory illusion showing that senses evolved to work together, not in isolation.
• 🌟 Multimodal perception allows the brain to process information more richly and remember it better.
• 🍿 The smell can significantly enhance memory, especially emotional memories, as shown by movie memory tests with popcorn scent.
• ☕ Starbucks uses the power of smell to evoke memory and maintain their brand experience with the scent of coffee.
• 🚫 Starbucks avoids overwhelming the coffee smell with other scents, ensuring the dominance of coffee aroma in their stores.
• 🥪 The introduction of breakfast sandwiches in Starbucks was delayed due to concerns over the smell overwhelming the coffee aroma.
• 📝 Howard Schultz, Starbucks' chairman, expressed concerns about changes in store aromas affecting the brand experience.

Q & A

What is the McGurk effect?

The McGurk effect is an auditory illusion where the perception of a sound changes when visual information, such as lip movements, contradicts the auditory input. In the experiment, when the lips say 'gaga' but the sound says 'baba,' the brain combines them to perceive 'dada.'

How does the McGurk effect demonstrate multimodal perception?

The McGurk effect shows that the brain integrates multiple senses—in this case, vision and sound—to create an accurate perception of information. It exemplifies how the senses work together rather than in isolation.

Why is sensory integration important for learning?

Sensory integration enhances learning by creating a rich, information-dense experience. When multiple senses are stimulated simultaneously, the brain encodes more information and remembers it better.

How does smell influence memory, especially emotional memory?

Smell is highly effective at evoking memory, particularly emotional memory. For example, if you smell popcorn while watching a movie, you are likely to remember 10 to 50 percent more details.

What was the issue Starbucks faced when they introduced breakfast sandwiches in their stores?

Starbucks struggled to find the right oven for their breakfast sandwiches because the ovens were emitting strong food smells that overwhelmed the signature coffee aroma in the stores.

Why did Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks, express concern about the aroma in stores?

Howard Schultz was concerned that changes in the stores, such as flavor-locked coffee bags, reduced the dominant coffee aroma, which he believed was crucial to the Starbucks brand experience.

How did Starbucks ensure the coffee smell remained dominant in their stores?

Starbucks made sure employees didn't wear perfumes or colognes, and they focused on ensuring the smell of coffee was the main scent in the stores by controlling the aroma from other food products.

What does the script suggest about the relationship between smell and brand experience?

The script suggests that smell plays a critical role in brand experience. For Starbucks, the coffee aroma was an essential part of their identity, and altering or losing that smell risked harming the brand.

What did studies reveal about how sensory stimulation affects information retention?

Studies show that when multiple senses are stimulated, the brain retains more information because it experiences a richer learning environment. This stimulation can enhance memory by up to 50 percent.

What role does smell play in sensory integration, based on the Starbucks example?

In the Starbucks example, smell played a crucial role in maintaining brand identity. Starbucks controlled the scent environment to enhance customer experience and ensure the coffee aroma was associated with their stores.

Outlines

00:00

👂 The McGurk Effect: Multimodal Perception

This paragraph introduces the McGurk Effect, an auditory illusion that demonstrates how our senses work together to create a unified perception. The effect is shown through an experiment where the viewer perceives 'da da da' when the audio and video are mismatched. The paragraph explains that this is an example of multimodal perception, where the brain integrates information from more than one sensory system. It also discusses the impact of sensory integration on learning and memory, using the example of how smell can enhance memory recall, particularly for emotional memories.

Keywords

💡McGurk Effect

The McGurk Effect is an auditory illusion where visual and auditory information conflict, leading the brain to perceive something different from either input alone. In the video, the speaker shows that when the lips are saying 'gaga' and the sound is 'ba,' most people hear 'da.' This demonstrates how sensory integration affects perception, emphasizing that vision can influence how we hear.

💡Sensory Integration

Sensory integration refers to the brain's process of combining information from different senses to form a coherent perception. The video explains how the senses work together, as shown in the McGurk Effect, where both vision and hearing influence what we perceive. This concept highlights how stimulating multiple senses creates a richer learning experience.

💡Multimodal Perception

Multimodal perception is the process by which the brain integrates information from multiple sensory systems. In the video, this term is illustrated by the combination of sound and vision in the McGurk Effect, showing that our perception of the world is enhanced when more than one sense is engaged.

💡Auditory Illusion

An auditory illusion occurs when what we hear is distorted or changed by other sensory input, such as vision. The McGurk Effect, used as an example in the video, shows how conflicting visual and auditory signals cause the brain to misinterpret what is being heard.

💡Perception

Perception is the brain's interpretation of sensory input, forming our experience of the world. The video emphasizes that perception is not isolated to one sense but can be shaped by multiple senses working together, as demonstrated by the McGurk Effect, where both sight and sound influence what is perceived.

💡Information-Rich Learning Experience

An information-rich learning experience occurs when multiple senses are stimulated simultaneously, leading the brain to encode more information in a shorter amount of time. The video highlights how sensory integration, such as combining sight and sound, improves memory retention and learning efficiency.

💡Emotional Memory

Emotional memory refers to the strong connection between emotions and the ability to recall past experiences. In the video, it is noted that smells, like the smell of popcorn during a movie, can trigger emotional memories, enhancing the retention of information related to the experience.

💡Starbucks Smell Strategy

Starbucks' smell strategy is the company’s deliberate effort to control the scent in their stores to enhance customer experience. The video explains how Starbucks ensured the dominant smell in their stores was coffee by avoiding competing aromas, like perfume or breakfast food smells, to reinforce their brand identity.

💡Smell and Memory

Smell and memory are closely linked, with scents often triggering vivid recollections. In the video, it’s explained that smells, such as popcorn in a movie theater, can help people remember 10 to 50 percent more about the experience, showing how sensory input beyond sight and sound can enhance learning and memory.

💡Sensory Overload

Sensory overload occurs when too many stimuli from different senses compete for the brain’s attention, potentially diminishing the overall experience. In the video, Starbucks had to find the right oven for their breakfast sandwiches to avoid overwhelming the coffee smell, illustrating the need for balance in sensory inputs.

Highlights

Brain Rule number nine emphasizes the importance of sensory integration.

The McGurk effect is introduced as an auditory illusion.

The McGurk effect demonstrates multimodal perception where vision and sound work together.

When multiple senses are stimulated, the brain has a richer learning experience.

Multisensory stimulation helps the brain encode and remember information better.

Smell is particularly effective at evoking memory, especially emotional memory.

The smell of popcorn can improve memory recall by 10 to 50 percent.

Starbucks is used as a business example of leveraging sensory integration.

Starbucks ensures the smell of coffee is dominant in their stores.

Starbucks employees are instructed not to wear perfume to preserve the coffee aroma.

Starbucks faced challenges in introducing breakfast sandwiches due to the smell of the ovens.

Howard Schultz, Starbucks' chairman, expressed concern over changes in store aromas.

The aroma of coffee is crucial to Starbucks' brand experience.

Starbucks had to find the right oven to avoid overwhelming the coffee smell with breakfast food.

The concern over the store's aroma led to headlines in the Advertising Age.

Maintaining the coffee smell is essential as Starbucks' primary business is coffee.

Transcripts

[Music]

brain rule number nine

sensory integration stimulate more of

the census

watch this experiment it's called the

mcgurk effect

what do you think he's saying if you

think he's saying

da da da you are in the grand majority

but now close your eyes and listen

instead of watching

the voice is saying

now let's replay it without the sound

yes it's true his lips are saying gaga

so how is it that when the lips are

saying

and the sound says

that our brains read da da da

mcgurk effect it's an example of an

auditory illusion

it's a great way to show that the

accurate perception of information

can involve the participation of more

than one sensory system

in this case vision with sound we call

it

multimodal perception the magirk effect

it's a terrific example of the fact that

the senses did not evolve in isolation

from each other

but actually work together to help us

perceive our world

when multiple senses are stimulated

simultaneously

the brain begins to experience an

information rich learning experience and

lapse it up like ice cream it encodes

more information per unit time

and it remembers that information better

too for instance

smell is unusually effective at evoking

memory

especially emotional memory if you're

tested on the details of a movie while

the smell of popcorn is wafted into the

air

you'll remember 10 to 50 percent more

the

perfect business example involves

starbucks

when i used to walk into starbucks the

first thing i smelled was coffee

they made sure their employees didn't

wear perfume or cologne when they're

working because they didn't want it to

overwhelm the coffee smell

they made sure the only thing he smelled

was coffee

and then they introduced

breakfast food melissa allison covers

starbucks for the seattle times

in the past couple of years starbucks

has started selling breakfast sandwiches

in its stores

but it took many years for them to get

to the point of actually rolling it out

across

their stores because they couldn't find

the right oven for it

the ovens they were using were putting

off too much breakfast sandwich smell

and they were afraid that was

overwhelming the smell of the coffee

in 2007 howard schultz the chairman of

the company

wrote a memo to his top executives

saying that he was concerned

that many things had changed in their

stores including the aroma

he wrote that flavor locked bags may

have kept the coffee smell from being

dominant in their stores

it was such a big deal that that there

were huge headlines advertising age even

had one that said starbucks smells the

death of its brand experience

even though starbucks has branched out

into other areas they have always said

that coffee is their main business

as long as that's the case they're going

to have to take pains to make sure the

smell of coffee is in their stores