As election hysteria begins to calm down, doctors at
UCLA’s Brain Mapping Center attempt to figure out what gets
voters politically riled up in the first place.
Dr. Marco Iacoboni, an associate professor at the
Neuropsychiatric Institute, and his team have recently concluded an
experiment, known as functional magnetic resonance imaging, or
fMRI, analyzing people’s responses to political ads using
brain scanning techniques.
The researchers found that different parts of the brain were
activated in Democrats and Republicans when exposed to identical
stimuli, possibly explaining the divide between the parties.
Iacoboni showed 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans photographs of
three presidential candidates ““ President Bush, John Kerry
and Ralph Nader ““ and political commercials. From inside the
MRI machine, participants in the study viewed the images through
goggles as the machine measured blood flow activity in their
brains, which “correlates neural activity,” explained
Iacoboni. Increased blood flow to a particular region indicates
local brain activity by the current image.
When subjects were shown images of their preferred candidate,
the emotional region of the brain reacted. “Emotions play a
role in political thinking; in this case, it is positive
emotion,” Iacoboni said.
In contrast, images of the other candidates caused a strong
response in the lateral prefrontal cortex, the area known to
control rational thinking.
Iacoboni hypothesized people were using their “rational
apparatus to control their emotions.” Instead of reacting
emotionally, subjects seemed to employ a more rational approach to
thinking about the other candidates.
A commercial for Bush, including images of Sept. 11, 2001,
produced a strong reaction in the Democrats’ amygdala, the
brain region responding to fearful or threatening stimuli.
It seemed to Iacoboni and his team that Democrats believed that
Bush was using the tragedy of September 11 as a ploy for
re-election. Democrats also showed similar reactions in the
amygdala to the images in Lyndon B. Johnson’s controversial
“Daisy” ad, portraying a young girl picking daisies,
and a countdown to a nuclear explosion. Many cited the ad as a fear
tactic.
“Johnson continued to use a number of these kinds of
spots, capitalizing on the fear technique, which struck a
responsive chord in voters,” said Lynda Kaid, professor of
telecommunications at the University of Florida, in a paper titled
“Low Blows and High Rhetoric: Political Ads on
Television”.
The ad appealed to the emotional part of voters’ brains
which Iacoboni demonstrates with his research.
“Since this has no political implication today, it
suggests Democrats are simply more troubled by violence in
general,” explained Iacoboni.
Republicans viewing the Sept. 11, 2001 Bush ad showed activity
in the region associated with one’s sense of self and
self-recognition. Iacoboni believes that “Republicans
identify with the Bush ad.” This effect was not seen in
Democrats viewing Kerry ads.
Iacoboni predicts that these results could be very useful to
political consultants. “People make decisions mostly
unconsciously. They can’t explain why,” Iacoboni said.
Brain scanning could provide political consultants with information
that focus groups could not. They would literally get inside the
heads of voters.
Spokeswoman for the California Democratic Party, Mary
Guttierrez, agrees that this technology can’t be ruled out as
a replacement or supplement to political focus groups.
“Politics is becoming much more “˜high tech’.
This is definitely something that should be looked into,” she
said.