priming

Coffee aromas can increase arousal and cognitive performance.

An upscale hotel in Amsterdam sells a hamburger for about $20. That probably isn't much out of line with similar meals at big-city hotels, but this establishment uses an interesting technique to make its prices seem a bit more…

Trying to close a deal? Get a commitment from a big donor? Or, just build a stronger connection with someone? The most critical time for achieving that goal may be the ten minutes before you talk about business.

This is big news for guys. For years, I've gently mocked my half of the species for being far-too-easily influenced by female images. Babes in bikinis alter male behavior, but it doesn't always take that much. Simply including a photo of…

Do you find chunks of your day consumed by less than productive activities? Updating Twitter? Checking Facebook? Clicking on those fascinating links posted by your friends? Checking sports scores or stock prices? Catching up on the…

If you were at my SXSW panel, How Brain Science Turns Browsers into Buyers, you already saw the latest proof that sexy imagery can boost sales. Ion Interactive, a firm specializing in online conversion, ran a test for online game-maker…

A vivid story can put us in a more altruistic mode, a study shows. UK researchers looked at the two ways people think about death - abstractly or specifically. They used a detailed story which placed the reader in a burning apartment…

Stupidity appears to be contagious, and you can catch it from the media you consume. Researcher Markus Appel had college students read a story about a "foolish soccer hooligan" who got drunk, got into fights, etc., or a more neutral…

The simple answer is that, much as viewing images of attractive women made men impatient, looking at logos of fast food restaurants caused an increase in impatient behavior. Researchers at the University of Toronto found that simply…

Want to boost your creativity by investing a quarter or so? Buy a lightbulb. Not the fancy LED, halogen, or compact fluorescent variety - just the old-fashioned, cheap incandescent kind that come in four-packs for a buck or so.…