BETA
This is a BETA experience. You may opt-out by clicking here

More From Forbes

Edit Story

Disney Knows Your Brain And Wants Your Emotions

Following
This article is more than 8 years old.

The launch of Pixar's latest animated film, Inside Out, is imminent. While most will watch the film for its story and animation, there's an interesting backstory.

Much of the story takes place inside the head of the main character, the 11-year-old Riley. Five emotions interact there, voiced by actors like Amy Poehler and Louis Black.

The emotions are Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear, and Sadness. These might sound like the fanciful creations of a fiction writer, but in fact they are based on sound science.

As described in The Atlantic, the film's director, Pete Docter, consulted extensively with psychologist Paul Ekman. Ekman is the creator of facial coding - the characterization of different human facial expressions into a discrete set of emotions.

Ekman actually identified six universal emotions that appear in human faces, but "surprise" was eliminated in the movie due to its similarity to fear. The remaining five in the movie are Ekman's.

Coincidentally (or not), Ekman co-authored the similarly titled book, Emotions Inside Out, in 2003.

Facial Coding and Neuromarketing

Ekman's research resulted in his developing the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), which is the basis for today's increasingly popular neuromarketing application of facial coding. As subjects watch commercials, view products, visit websites, etc., their facial expressions are monitored to gauge their emotional reactions.

Originally, facial coding analysis was performed by experts, often using slow motion video, to record fleeting "micro-expressions" on people's faces. These quickly masked expressions are believed to represent true emotional reactions.

Today, some neuromarketing firms also use various automated methods for reading expressions. Some even use cameras on mobile devices and laptops, allowing large and diverse research panels.

Pixar, Story, and Emotion

While some think Pixar's remarkable string of hits is due to their pushing the limits of animation technology, the truth is simpler. The studio has relentless focus on story and character.

The characters seem real not because of the lifelike animation, but because they have human emotions and reactions. (Here's more on Pixar storytelling.)

I suspect that skilled animation artists have a better grasp of the meaning of facial expressions than just about any other profession. After all, they need to convey a range of emotion in their characters by repositioning and bending a handful of facial elements.

Early Disney and Psychology

Disney's interest in emotion goes back many decades.

Here's a Disney cartoon you probably haven't seen before, Reason and Emotion, a propaganda film from the time of World War II:

This short film is interesting not because of the heavy-handed political messaging but rather because of the way it illustrates the dual nature of human decision making. The brain is portrayed as two people striving for control, a straight-laced accountant-looking man in a suit and a rambunctious caveman.

There are lots of decision-making theories with varying degrees of traction among today's neuroscientists. Nobelist Daniel Kahneman's System 1 and 2 loosely map to the caveman and accountant.

The impulsive, emotional, non-conscious System 1 described by Kahneman drives Disney's caveman, and the suit-wearing stiff who thinks through everything logically is clearly System 2.

The caveman image also ties in neatly with modern theories of evolutionary psychology. While we often think of our decision making as rational, evolutionary psychologists like Geoffrey Miller say that much of our behavior is controlled by patterns that go back to our hunter-gatherer days.

Indeed, the cover of Miller's book Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior features a caveman on the cover.

Disney was way ahead of these psychologists. Kahneman was just 9 years old when the cartoon was released, and his research would come decades later. Miller was born in 1965, more than twenty years after Disney's animated caveman was fighting for control.

Disney didn't invent this line of thought, of course. The interplay between emotion and reason has interested philosophers as far back as Aristotle.

Nevertheless, psychologists today would likely find the caveman/accountant duality simplistic but not too far off the mark.

Getting inside your brain

From its theme parks to its cruise ships, not to mention its media ventures, Disney has been uncommonly good at crafting emotional appeals that work.

One way they have done this is to employ a variety of neuromarketing (or consumer neuroscience, the term some prefer) technologies to gauge real consumer reactions.

Six years ago, I wrote Disney’s Secret Austin Neuromarketing Lab, which described the firm's under the radar effort to measure consumer emotions and behavior.

The lab isn't quite so secret now. The operator of the lab, Media Science, is no longer under exclusive contract with Disney.

Media Science now accepts work from a variety of clients. I toured the facility earlier this year, and was impressed by the variety of technology used by Media Science. They had biometrics, eye tracking, facial coding, and implicit testing, along with more conventional approaches like focus groups, surveys, and usability tests.

The Austin lab was launched in 2008. Disney was clearly ahead of most big corporations in the practical application of neuromarketing techniques.

Disney's Brainy Success

Disney has been remarkably successful over the years. I'd attribute that in part to their keen interest in how our brains work and the importance of emotion in consumer behavior.

Their 1943 cartoon to the contrary, Disney understands that whether we're deciding on a vacation destination or choosing a movie, it's not usually "reason" in the driver seat - it's emotion!

Roger Dooley is the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing (Wiley, 2011). Find Roger on Twitter as @rogerdooley and at his website, Neuromarketing.