Consumer Engineering

(Nobody) 

Here's an old study I came across while reading this very interesting and disturbing book on electronic drugs: Addiction By Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, Natasha Dow Schüll, Princeton University Press, 2012. [link] 

Effects of Ambient Odors on Slot-Machine Usage in a Las Vegas Casino.

Alan R. Hirsch. Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation, Ltd. Psychology & Marketing Vol. 12(7):585-594 (October 1995). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. [link]

Our data show that the amount of money gambled in the slot machines surrounding Odorant No. 1 during the experimental weekend was greater than the amount gambled in the same area during the weekends before and after the experiment by an average of 45%.

• The odor was noticeable (suprathreshold levels)
• It showed a dose-response relationship because they emitted less on Sundays, and people spent less on Sundays (yet still more than the other days)
• I don't see any description of how they ensured the emitted smell actually accumulated in the targeted area instead of getting blown away by ventilation or occupant circulation, but that's a minor criticism
• Although both odorants were described as pleasant by a panel, I don't see  any other information about them, although it should be pointed out that only one of the odorants had an effect;
• On multi-modal stimulation and hijacking your hindbrain, he reminds us, "In casinos it is common to incite patrons to gamble by directly appealing to their senses: the exciting sounds of coins jingling, sirens screaming when someone hits the jackpot, intense lighting, plush carpets, luxurious surroundings, and controlled temperature."

*Wordplay, not to be taken seriously; hindbrain refers to the cerebellum and below, whereas the limbic system, which is where smell happens, is located above, in the midbrain

Note on the Author: Alan R. Hirsch was the Neurological Director of the Smell & Taste Research and Treatment Foundation in Chicago.

Gene Editing for Behavior Design

Illustrated by Bill Butcher for The Economist

Because ants are social creatures, an ant colony is really a superorganism, making them a valuable model for studying complex biological systems. And because of the way they reproduce, scientists can edit whole colonies in one stroke.

Although ants have 350 odor receptor genes (similar to humans), they also have this thing called a coreceptor gene that every odor gene has to go through to work. Shut that one off, and you shut down the whole system.

And what happens when ants can't smell? They stop talking to other ants, stop doing their job, and they get lost from the group. That's not it though, they also saw changes in brain anatomy, where some sensory substructures didn't grow at all.

Scientists are hoping these studies can help understand how social behavior changes the way neurological disorders like schizophrenia or depression work, and how sensory development in general change the brain.

***
Now, as I stretch on a heavy tangent here, I think about how there are developers on the other side of candy crush and facebook whose job it is to model your behavior and then tweak it to make you stay using the product. Game theory maybe, the science of addiction perhaps? Behavior design, according to this article (an earlier attempt termed it captology). Not sure what we're calling this, but everything from dating websites to the weather channel are using these techniques to keep us tapping into the pleasure centers of our brains and therefore coming back for more. In a distant future, I wonder if we might want to try knocking out the olfactory receptors in people in order to make them more malleable. If we take away people's sense of smell, maybe they will be more easily influenced to do what we want them to do.


Researchers use CRISPR to manipulate social behavior in ants
Aug 2017, phys.org

From two different studies:
Cell, Trible et al: "orco mutagenesis causes loss of antennal lobe glomeruli and impaired social behavior in ants."www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30772-9 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.07.001

Cell, Yan et al: "An engineered orco mutation produces aberrant social behavior and defective neural development in ants"www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)30770-5 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2017.06.051


Post Script:
The Scientists Who Make Apps Addictive, Ian Leslie, Nov 2016, The Economist

good explanation of behavior design in computer programming/software development:

When you get to the end of an episode of “House of Cards” on Netflix, the next episode plays automatically unless you tell it to stop. Your motivation is high, because the last episode has left you eager to know what will happen and you are mentally immersed in the world of the show. The level of difficulty is reduced to zero. Actually, less than zero: it is harder to stop than to carry on. Working on the same principle, the British government now “nudges” people into enrolling into workplace pension schemes, by making it the default option rather than presenting it as a choice.

When motivation is high enough, or a task easy enough, people become responsive to triggers such as the vibration of a phone, Facebook’s red dot, the email from the fashion store featuring a time-limited offer on jumpsuits. The trigger, if it is well designed (or “hot”), finds you at exactly the moment you are most eager to take the action. The most important nine words in behaviour design, says Fogg, are, “Put hot triggers in the path of motivated people.”

...
Unconscious impulses are transformed into social obligations, which compel attention, which is sold for cash.

see also: Addiction by Design, by Natasha Dow Schüll, Princeton 2013