Food and Media – From Mr. Pavlov’s Perspective

Russian physicist Ivan P. Pavlov (1849-1936) did an experiment to study the interaction among:

1. salivation response of dogs
2. bell buzzer
3. food

Pavlov’s experiment (see Table 1) showed that changes of behavior can be achieved with the presence of 3 elements:

1. A carrier – any well known stimuli that can arouse sensual feeling of the recipient.
2. A tag – a new stimulus that is intended to be introduced into recipient.
3. A conditioning process – “Mix” a tag with a carrier, "shake it" and “serve the cocktail” repetitively to the target recipient.

Remarks:

1. Green cell: Before conditioning process in (3, 4) : salivation can not be triggered by buzzer.
2. Red cell: After conditioning process in (3, 4) : salivation can be triggered by buzzer.

Media (such as movies and advertisement) contains the nature of conditioning process that conditions (changes) our perception and behavior without our notice. When our mind is “blended” into the sensual feelings that are aroused by these media, we might be easily influenced by these materials.

Cheers! Have a great day!