Usage: Ergonomics of the mind means "user friendly to the brain."
For the last 100,000 years, human beings have designed products so as to
maximize their appeal to emotions, feelings, and moods. Today we form strong
attachments to products that express themselves, show attitude, and emote
"personality" (see, e.g., BIG MAC, BLUE
JEANS, VEHICULAR STRIPE).
Familiarity.
We prefer products we have already seen, tasted, heard, felt, or smelled
over those we have not yet experienced. According to research by Robert Zajonc (1980): "If
subjects are exposed to some novel visual patterns (like Chinese ideograms) and
then asked to choose whether they prefer the previously exposed or new patterns,
they reliably tend to prefer the preexposed ones. Mere exposure to stimuli is
enough to create preferences" (quoted in LeDoux, 1996:53). Subliminal mere
exposure works, too: "This led him [Robert Bornstein] to conclude that the mere
exposure effect is much stronger when the stimuli are subliminally presented
than when the stimuli are freely available for conscious inspection" (LeDoux,
1996:59).
Color. We like multi-hued products. Like our primate
relatives, we have acute color vision and can recognize ca. 200 specific hues,
from fiery reds to violet blues. (N.B.: The color green strongly
attracts our attention, and is used in traffic lights, under the first and last
steps of escalators, and in rented bowling shoes.)
Touch.
We like products that feel smooth and soft to the touch. When a silk scarf,
e.g., is drawn across our palm, the "soft" sensation is carried by free nerve
endings, the oldest touch sensors found in vertebrate skin. Today, the soft
or protopathic touch sensors found in hairless areas of our skin are
partly responsible for our itching, tickling, and sexual sensations.
See
also ARTIFACT, OBJECT
FANCY, VEHICULAR GRILLE.
Copyright 1998 - 2016 (David B. Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)
Drawing of "Showing My Nonverbal Side" by my son Aaron Huffman (copyright 2012 by Aaron M. Huffman)