Products seem to be perceived as more prestigious the more they’re spaced out. This effect is thought to be partly because a larger display requires more space; the bigger the space, the higher the rent, and thus the more prestigious the products; if their products weren’t high quality, then the store would have fewer sales and be unable to afford the rent. One study demonstrated that “people rated the same chocolate 10.3% tastier when free samples of it were displayed on a table that was 30-inch rather than 18-inch deep.” Read full article here
Oddities
The Curious Case of the Ancient Brain
In 2008, archaeologists examining the University of York discovered something strange: the decapitated head of an Iron Age man and his very shrivelled but very much intact brain. How a centuries-old brain was preserved is still unknown, but research suggests that it could have been because of brain diseases like dementia. The Yorkshire man’s brain’s proteins were bunched up together, much like how dementia causes brain proteins to bunch up into plaques. This bunching up, or aggregation, could continue even after death, turning regions of the brain into hard masses. Read full article here
Merv
September 30, 2022
