The article about cognitive fluency brings up a lot of good points that can be interpreted in many day to day tasks that nobody ever really thinks about. For example, it states that stocks tend to do better when they have a simpler, fluent, more common name because it is recognizable and easy to process mentally. Personally, I think this is a good tactic when thinking of business names or product names because you make what you’re selling more relatable to the consumer, and will probably end up doing better. In today’s society, everything is in fast-forward, people running around looking for the fastest easiest way to get things done. It was only a matter of time before we figured out our brains did the same thing with the littlest things, like advertisements. We are always looking for shortcuts, and maybe it’s just because our brains are programmed to look for the shortest, fastest ways possible to get around, as seen with examples from this article.
Also, the point the article had that we base beauty or attractiveness based off of common ideas of beauty or attractiveness is interesting, and it makes one stop and think about how true that really is. With TV shows these days emphasizing lifestyles of celebrities and society-interpreted standards of acceptance and beauty, viewers are exposed to the ideal. This becomes imprinted in our brains, and from then on we only see beauty in what is familiar to the ideal. Faces become regular prototypes for the mind’s basis of familiarity. For example, from some of my observations there is a weird coincidence with people being in relationships with a person that looks oddly similar to one of their siblings. This creepy coincidence probably has something to do with this idea of cognitive fluency. As we grow up, we see more of our family than anyone else in our life, and it may just be nature to become familiar with these faces and look for someone else to spend such comparable time with that has a relatable face, proving your life may stay consistent and fluent if you’re surrounded by similar, familiar faces continually. Though this is just a strange theory, I think it is easily applicable to this idea of cognitive fluency.
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I really like the way you expanded the ideas presented in the article to the theory of having relationships with people who look similar to family. I think this is a perfect example of how the brain can function subconsciously. The brain makes decisions without us consciously knowing more than we think. This applies not only to advertising, but also to daily life. Billions of dollars are spent every year on advertising. All this money is spent so that viewers build a subconscious knowledge of the product being advertised. When picking between two brands the consumer always bases his or her decision on familiarity. In our high paced lifestyle with an abundance of choices, subconscious decisions can be the main way we pick which brands we buy.
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