CrushedVol
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This was prompted but the deleted BA thread.
for some reason my google skills are failing me, having a hard time finding the actual study. But below are the basics.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january16/wine-011608.html
The original study was using the data for marketing purposes. How to predict, change, and shape a consumers experience of a product. However what i took out of it in the world of beer tasting, is that rare beer actually does taste better, by the very nature of being rare.
There are plenty of issues with the study itself.
Only 11 people - All Grad Students- All male - Not experienced tasters etc. but it should't affect the discussion.
This part isn't unexpected, but people general assume participant bias. That they are lying because that's the answer they think they are supposed to give, because expensive wine should taste better.
But these tasters were having MRI scans of their brains while tasting.
It's doesn't seem to be expressly stated in this article, but what i remember about the study is the scientists used the activity of the brain as a subjective value of how good the wine tasted. And the brain scan from the same bottle of wine with a higher price showed more activity.
Now I know little about the human brain, (and even less about he female human brain) and may be extrapolating to much from the study, but it seems to suggest the participants actually enjoyed the more expensive bottles more even though it was the exact same liquid.
It would appear that when we expect something will be better our brain is pre-stimulated and then we in reality enjoy it more.
for some reason my google skills are failing me, having a hard time finding the actual study. But below are the basics.
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2008/january16/wine-011608.html
The original study was using the data for marketing purposes. How to predict, change, and shape a consumers experience of a product. However what i took out of it in the world of beer tasting, is that rare beer actually does taste better, by the very nature of being rare.
The researchers recruited 11 male Caltech graduate students who said they liked and occasionally drank red wine. The subjects were told that they would be trying five different Cabernet Sauvignons, identified by price, to study the effect of sampling time on flavor. In fact, only three wines were used—two were given twice. The first wine was identified by its real bottle price of $5 and by a fake $45 price tag. The second wine was marked with its actual $90 price and by a fictitious $10 tag. The third wine, which was used to distract the participants, was marked with its correct $35 price.
There are plenty of issues with the study itself.
Only 11 people - All Grad Students- All male - Not experienced tasters etc. but it should't affect the discussion.
The participants said they could taste five different wines, even though there were only three, and added that the wines identified as more expensive tasted better.
This part isn't unexpected, but people general assume participant bias. That they are lying because that's the answer they think they are supposed to give, because expensive wine should taste better.
But these tasters were having MRI scans of their brains while tasting.
The researchers found that an increase in the perceived price of a wine did lead to increased activity in the mOFC [Orbital Frontal Cortex?] because of an associated increase in taste expectation.
It's doesn't seem to be expressly stated in this article, but what i remember about the study is the scientists used the activity of the brain as a subjective value of how good the wine tasted. And the brain scan from the same bottle of wine with a higher price showed more activity.
Now I know little about the human brain, (and even less about he female human brain) and may be extrapolating to much from the study, but it seems to suggest the participants actually enjoyed the more expensive bottles more even though it was the exact same liquid.
It would appear that when we expect something will be better our brain is pre-stimulated and then we in reality enjoy it more.