Lipstick in the brain
Lipstick interacts with the human brain mostly in indirect ways. Kazue Hirabayashi and colleagues have been modernising the search for some of those interactions.
Their stated goal is to find 鈥渁 real-time brain-based product evaluation method which detects the incongruency between a product, in this case lipstick, and a consumer鈥檚 expectations鈥�. The latest explorations led to a study called 鈥溾��, published in Frontiers in Neuroergonomics. Reader Nicolas Clairis brought it to Feedback鈥檚 attention.
Advertisement
The experiment tried to measure the incongruency 鈥� the presumably disappointing mismatch 鈥� between the actual softness of a lipstick and the softness the lipstick customer had expected of that lipstick. The method being tried here was fairly novel for the cosmetics industry: using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) to measure activity in a lipstick-wearer鈥檚 right inferior frontal gyrus.
Some members of the team had done earlier explorations 鈥� also using fNIRS 鈥� of lipstick in the brain. In 2021 they reported discovery of 鈥溾��.
Four years earlier, they reported an even more ambitious project. Its broad scope is evident in the title: 鈥溾��.
Feedback has seen few better examples of lipstick-and-brain-centric interdisciplinary research.
Face value of lipstick
But here is perhaps one better example of lipstick-and-brain-centric interdisciplinary research: a study by Dhuha Hadiyansyah, Era Bawarti and Maria Ulfa at the Al-Azhar University of Indonesia.
The trio sought to determine how female students at the university 鈥渞epresented particular meanings through their choice of lipstick colours鈥�. They contrast 鈥� an incongruity 鈥� between the students鈥� explicitly stated reasons for choosing colours and 鈥渢he subconscious message they want to convey鈥�.
That subconscious message, explain Hadiyansyah, Bawarti and Ulfa, 鈥渋s quite complex, ranging from optimism, cheerfulness, joy, modesty, warm [sic], wanting to be the centre of attention, femininity, passion and love, to sensuality鈥�.
The study, 鈥淟ipstick as female students visual communication strategy鈥�, was presented at the 4th International Conference on Islamic Epistemology, which was conducted virtually. The published version contains no information as to lipstick-borne conscious or unconscious messaging by conference participants.
What a buzz
This bounty year for cicadas (see 鈥�A cicada double brood is coming 鈥� it鈥檚 less rare than you think鈥�, ) has Feedback remembering a medical experiment that used cicadas to treat tinnitus.
Those with tinnitus hear annoying sounds at times and in places that people who don鈥檛 have tinnitus don鈥檛. The sounds can vary from person to person, from day to day, even from moment to moment. Descriptions of them, when listed, sound like a chunk of a Foley artist鈥檚 to-do list: ringing, whining, blowing, roaring, buzzing, chirping, clicking, sizzling, crackling, white noise, static and so on and on and on.
Commonly, people say it is like the sound cicadas make.
And so, decided Mithila Durai and Grant Searchfield at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, why not use the fight-fire-with-fire approach? Fight tinnitus with cicadas 鈥� or, for efficiency and ease, recorded cicada sounds.
So they did. They tried other recorded sounds, too: surf and rain, and also some artificially generated noise. The treatments continued over several weeks. In 2017 they published a , in the journal Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience, about this 鈥渕ixed-methods trial of broad band noise and nature sounds for tinnitus therapy鈥�.
None of it cured tinnitus. But some sounds 鈥� especially the cicadas 鈥� helped some people sometimes, lessening the intensity or the annoyance of the tinnitus. Or so the scientists say those people said. Alas, there is no technically sound way to directly measure the perceived sounds caused by tinnitus. The only available evidence 鈥� what people say they hear, is a second-rate kind of evidence. It is pure hearsay.
Measured policing
Feedback鈥檚 search for hiring restrictions specifying numbers that aren鈥檛 based on actual job-performance requirements stirred memories for reader David Curtis. He writes about some history in his country, Australia.
鈥淵our request for job requirements based on measurements bring to mind an ad from the 1970s to increase female participation in the police forces. A picture was shown of a male and female in uniform asking the question 鈥榃hat is the difference between these two police officers?鈥� The answer was given as 鈥�6 inches鈥�. 鈥�
Human memory is impressive, but notoriously unreliable. Feedback hasn鈥檛 verified the persuasiveness or the existence of this ad, or the precision of that measurement.
Marc Abrahams created the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony and聽co-founded聽the magazine Annals of Improbable Research. Earlier, he worked on unusual ways to use computers. His website is聽.
Got a story for Feedback?
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.