>> ALEX: Hey guys, I’m here, let’s get technical.
Did you know I can control you?
I can make foods taste better or worse, even if the foods stay exactly the same.
I can make you taste things that aren't there... all through the power of presentation.
You want some cake?
To show just how strong the power of presentation is, we’re gonna do a little experiment.
Here with me, I have what seems to be a vanilla cake and a chocolate cake, but, in reality,
both cakes taste exactly the same.
Both taste like vanilla, I just dyed the brown one, brown.
I don’t know if that was such a good idea.
Now, we’re gonna feed both of these cakes to 6 different subjects and see which one
they like better.
So, Hi!
>> Hi!
>> Hello!
>> Hi!
Today we’re gonna try some cake.
Which cake do you usually like better chocolate or vanilla cake?
>> Vanilla.
>> Vanilla?
>> Chocolate.
>> Oh, chocolate, hands down.
>> Uhh, chocolate.
>> Definately chocolate.
>> Chocolate.
>> Chocolate?
>> Yea...
>> So, lucky for you, you do get to eat cake, it’s a little taste testing.
I have both vanilla and chocolate cake here, you get them both at the same time, eat however
you want.
>> It’s my lucky day.
>> You can eat a bite of each or all of each, however you so desire, and then I’ll ask
you some questions.
>> Alright.
>> I’m very excited.
>> I know! Yea
It’s a big day.
>> It is.
>> Any day when you eat cake, it’s a good day.
>> It feels like my birthday!
>> I know, right? Yea.
So, yea, which cake do you like better?
>> Probably the chocolate one.
>> I mean, like, the chocolate one.
Probably.
Yea.
>> I have to say chocolate.
>> I prefer the flavour of the chocolate, but the texture of the vanilla was better.
It was a better experience.
>> The vanilla was actually pretty good.
>> The vanilla was actually very good?
>> The chocolate wasn’t too chocolate-y.
>> Wasn’t too chocolate-y?
>> Yea.
>> Ok.
Very cool!
Why?
What did you like better about it?
>> Um, it was sweeter, not gonna lie.
>> It was sweeter?
>> Yea.
>> It just had more flavour to it.
Richer.
>> I don’t know.
It tasted better.
Less vanilla-y.
>> The chocolate flavour is great.
Because... chocolate.
But the vanilla, was just better in the mouth.
>> Because I like chocolate.
*laughing*
Um, I mean, I just feel like it has more flavour, I guess.
Umm.
It’s a little bit richer.
>> ALEX: Even though both cakes taste exactly the same, the subjects who liked chocolate
better reported the “chocolate” cake tasting better.
Woah.
So, what if I were to tell you that those cakes, in reality, taste exactly the same?
I just used food colouring.
>> Ah ha!
>> That’s insane.
>> I would not be surprised because this is a Technicality episode.
*laughs*
>> I shouldn’t have represented it like that.
Yea, so those were basically the exact same cakes.
>> They aren’t exactly the same.
No.
>> They taste exactly the same.
They’re both just vanilla cakes, with the “chocolate” one died chocolate.
>> What??
>> Can I try?
>> Wait, no.
I need to see...
>> Can I do this experiment Alex?
>> Sure, I mean now...
>> Wait it does!
That’s so weird.
>> Can you not spoil it?
I want to try some!
>> Technicality?
>> Yea, it’s for Technicality.
>> Yea, they taste...
>> ALEX: That is crazy!
But all very real.
You yourself might think “Oh, I would never be fooled.”
But trust me: don’t trust you.
So why does this happen?
Well it all comes down to the power of presentation.
Time and time again, we see presentation influences everything in our lives, more specifically,
food.
Let’s dig in.
Judges?
Woo, I’m one for one on my puns this episode.
Anywho, next time you're hungry and order takeout through Doordash, or Uber Eats, or
Postmates, or Grubhub, you know what, there’s a lot food delivery apps.
You’d think we conquered that market, but, no.
They keep coming.
The next time you order-in, make sure to take your food out of containers your food came
in and put it on your plates, because studies have shown that seemingly unimportant and
miniscule things like the colour of the plate, the organization of the food on it, and how
fancy the plate itself is can affect how much you like the food.
Links to all studies I cite, by the way, are in the description, as usual.
This is why high-end restaurants serve food all arty and beautiful and on perfectly perfect
plates.
It actually makes you perceive the food as tasting better.
We, as humans, by the way, prefer things that are more expensive.
Studies show that an aspirin pill that costs 50 cents is more effective than one that costs
1 cent, even if both pills are exactly the same.
The 50 cent aspirin pill is presented as more expensive, we think it’s going to work better,
and, thus, it does.
Anyways, back to your fancy meal.
If you’re drinking some nice wine with your meal, make sure to put it in your fanciest
glasses, because when your mind sees the posh as cousins glass, it thinks that the wine
inside it is just as nice.
Dan Ariely expands on this in his book Predictably Irrational, noting, “if you're really serious
about your wine, you may want to go all out and purchase the glasses that are specific
to burgundies, chardonnays, champagne, etc.
Each type of glass is supposed to provide the appropriate environment, which should
bring out the best in these wines (even though controlled studies find that the shape of
the glass makes no difference at all in an objective blind taste test, that doesn't stop
people from perceiving a significant difference when they are handed the "correct glass").
This advice doesn’t really apply to 18% of my audience, though so.
After pitching the idea of this video to my family, my grandma told me about another famous
case of power of presentation:
>> GRANDMA: Soda.
>> ALEX: Back in the 1970s and 1980s and other times, but mainly in the 70s and 80s, Pepsi
did a marketing stunt called the Pepsi Challenge, where they dared to people to compare Pepsi
and Coca-Cola.
Supposedly, in blind tests, Pepsi was prefered to Coke.
Coke’s response to this nope, in their studies, Coca-Cola actually was prefered.
Wait, 2 companies think that their own product’s are best what is this madness??
So, how did this happen?
Well, the Power of Presentation struck again.
In Pepsi’s experiment, participants would drink Coke and Pepsi from virtually identical
cups, except one was labeled M and the other Q, letters that were chosen at random.
Coca-Cola, on the other hand, didn’t have a blind test, they handed participants Coke
in Coke bottles and Pepsi in Pepsi bottles.
But, ignoring all branding, which soda really is better?
Or, you know what, that’s the wrong question to ask.
How would we effectively and intelligently test which soda is better?
Well, Samuel M. McClure, Jian Li, and a whole host of other cool people, answered just that.
Back in 2004, they tested 2 different things: if people like Coke or Pepsi more in blind
tests, and if people like Coke or Pepsi more when they knew they were drinking Coke and
Pepsi.
And, on top of that, the participants were in an fMRI machine.
While they were drinking the soda.
For an fMRI machine to work property, participants would have to stay completely still in it
while laying on their back and drinking the soda.
To do this, McClure and Li served the soda through plastic tubes which the participants
kept in their mouth.
Let’s just take a sec and admire how hilariously genius this all is.
*laughs*
So what did the researchers find?
Well, quote “For the anonymous task, we report a consistent neural response in the
ventromedial prefrontal cortex that correlated with subjects' behavioral preferences for
these beverages.
In the brand-cued experiment, brand knowledge for one of the drinks had a dramatic influence
on expressed behavioral preferences and on the measured brain responses.”
Huh.
One final note before we go: I want to point out that not everyone in the cake experiment
was fooled.
>> Actually, they taste very similar.
>> ALEX: However, and this is interesting, the reason he was suspicious was because of
the power of presentation.
>> I’m pretty dang sure they’re the same cake.
>> Ya sure?
>> I’m pretty sure.
>> What makes it seem like that?
>> Um, well, they taste the same.
Um, you had me eat the piece of cake for a reason.
I’m going to go meta on you and I’m gonna say there’s most likely something odd about
the cake.
And you’re smiling an awful lot.
So, yea, my guess it that they’re the same cake.
But they’re very good.
>> ALEX: The cake-eating was presented to him as an experiment for my educational YouTube
channel.
Because I presented it like that, he knew something was up.
This is known as Demand Characteristics, which is how the setting of the experiment can affect
the outcomes.
Laboratory layout, body language, language language, and other factors like that all
Stephen J. Weber and Thomas D. Cook were the people who first wrote about Demand Characteristics
in 1972, and noted that once the participant has picked up on what you’re trying to do
with the experiment, they’ll take on 1 of 4 different personas.
One!
The Good Participant.
The good participant will act in a way that validates the hypothesis of the experimenter.
A good participant in our experiment would be someone who thinks that the cakes taste
nothing alike and the brown cake is totally chocolate and couldn’t be vanilla in any
way.
Two!
The negative participant.
The negative participant will act in a way that disproves the hypothesis of the experimenter
in order to discredit the study.
Psychologists also call this, and I’m not kidding, the “Screw-You Effect.”
A negative participant in our scenario would be one who could never taste difference ever
and both cakes suck.
Three!
The faithful participant.
The faithful participant will follow every rule down to the letter.
This participant will do exactly as you say.
A faithful participant in our experiment would be, well, just doing the experiment.
A faithful participant is basically a normal participant.
Unless you usually have difficult subjects.
Four!
The apprehensive participant.
This is a participant who so nervous about being evaluated, they will do anything to
act in a “normal” or socially desirable way.
That looks like way over emphasizing good behavior, not at all saying anything socially
taboo, and other things like those.
An apprehensive participant in our experiment would be one who stayed quiet and made no
other references, no other comments, as to not risk being offensive.
So which of these characters did our participant play?
Well, it’s possible our participant decided to act as the negative participant, but remember,
the negative participants is actively trying to mess up the experiment, and this participant’s
intentions were unclear.
Regardless, I found the whole experiment fascinating and incredibly mind blowing.
The next time you eat a piece of cake, or go to a luxurious restaurant, or drink your
“favourite” soda, remember, the Power of Presentation.
Thanks for watching, DFTBA, and explore on.
If this video blew your mind, or, at the very least, brightened your day, hit that subscribe
button.
I had a ton of fun making this video, uhh, the non-cake part of this video was inspired
by Dan Ariely’s book Predictably Irrational, it’s wonderful read, link in the description.
Next episode, we explore 0 calorie foods, and there’s a bit of a special surprise.
Stay tuned.