A bunch of brain doctors from different colleges wrote a study on a research they conducted monitoring brain functions of swing voters on showing pictures of presidential candidates.
The NYT web site has a slide show with pictures of the parts of the brain being active while certain images are presented.
Some of the findings:
1. Hillary Clinton inducts mixed feeling in people. The part of the brain activated by viewing images of Clinton was the one known as an emotional center. It's usually active when dealing with hard to decide questions. According to the article, this means that Clinton has the potential to engage swing voters if she can soften negative responses to her.
2. Mitt Romney's speech was the one creating the highest brain activity. Initially, seeing Romney made the research subjects anxious, but as time went on, they became more and more comfortable. This means that Romney has a chance to be popular, if people see him more.
3. Thompson evokes more empathy when compared to Giuliani.
4. Barack Obama and John McCain had no powerful effect on people. These two candidates failed to engage people and create reactions in swing voter. They have to work on affecting these people.
If politicians take this research seriously and change their campaign tactics now, they might be able to win a few swing voters.
I think modern technology is both amazing and frightening. Just think of it: they scan our brains to find out how we feel, then analyze the results and come up an answer for the candidate on how to reach out to certain groups of people. This is really utopia-like! … and creeppyyy!!
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