Neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles are analyzing the brain patterns of voters to try to unravel their reactions to campaign commercials and political images from current and previous Presidential races. The researchers have been hoping to determine what marketing methods are most effective in reaching voters. What they've found is that there are some interesting differences in the brain patterns of Republicans and Democrats.
Researchers are not yet ready to draw any conclusions as their research is continuing. But, three political strategists have formed the company FKF Research and are funding the ongoing research. Professor Iacoboni, one of the researchers, hopes to use the research in order to start "applying how the brain works to social issues."
That's certainly attempting to put the 'science' back into 'political science.' There's been some question over recent months about whether the use of MRI and other brain-scanning technologies could be used to invade people's privacy. Assume an effective technology that allowed a machine to scan the brains of those who pass by an advertisement in a store and gauge the reaction of the shopper. If a positive reaction occurs, the store could send a clerk to attend to the shopper. Some researchers believe they can use brain-scan technology to identify those prone to harmful or even criminal behavior. Minority Report anyone?
Obviously, brain scanning can only be used to gauge your response now, so it's not likely to have predictive powers. (That is, it's not likely that a brain scan will tell people anything they have not already decided.) However, such scanning might have the power to convince people of things they were only inclined toward before.
Say, for example, that a man is interested in three different women. If a brain scan confirmed to him that woman #1 had his highest affinity, he might take the scan as confirmation of who he ought to choose rather than other, more rigorous methods to determine the one best suited for him. The culture's blind faith in the accuracy of technology could lead individuals to follow their emotional inclination even more so than we do already.
Applying that to politics would make elections even more interesting....
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