Your brain is smarter than you

This interesting study pretty much confirmed what I've thought for a long time: focus groups are waaaastes of tiiiime, and we more or less have very little idea about what influences our behavior (at least when it comes to advertising, I guess). 

Synopsis:

1. People are shown three (3) TV ads.
2. Everyone gets a brain scan! (I'm assuming in a presentation a la Oprah).
3. They're asked to rate the ads in order of effectiveness.
4. Consensus is A [most], then B, then C [least].
5. Their respective brains sigh in exasperation, and tell the scanning machine that no, the order is actually C-B-A, and that these people are pretty much clueless about themselves.
6. Follow-up data on the effectiveness of the ads in the real world show that "ad C" indeed resulted in the strongest response.
7. (Brains probably sigh again, knowing that this pattern will likely repeat itself in the future.)

Original post over here: http://www.psypost.org/2012/04/which-ads-are-winners-your-brain-knows-better-than-you-do-11355