[dkimball]

On actually reading the article: this title is a bad summary. (Makes me think of Slashdot.) What the article covers is the point, which I hope is uncontroversial, that stimuli give rise to responses, and influence the course of cognition: holding a warm cup of coffee makes you think more, well, warmly of someone you're interviewing; seeing a framed picture of a library causes you to speak more quietly; the smell of cleaning agents inspires you to keep your cubicle clean; long dint of repetition encourages you to decide that yes, in fact, you are having a Big Mac attack.

None of this is controversial, unless you're thinking in terms of Descartes -- the body and mind as purely separate and the mind as purely master of the body. There's a Catholic saying that "body and soul are one" -- what the soul (or mind, if you prefer) does, affects the body, and what the body does, affects the soul.

Another thing I'd mention: like evolutionary psychology, this article's research is highly culture-bound. They don't seem to be interested in determining whether pictures of libraries mean the same thing to Indonesian hill tribes, or whether the scent of Febreeze means the same thing to Moroccans (or red mages).

Also, as the article points out, this kind of unconscious encouragement can be overcome; you have only to be aware of it.

[Matti]

Perceptual Control Theorists would argue that you don't understand behavior if you think that we, or other animals, respond to stimuli.

"The illusion of stimulus and response [..] What we see from outside the system is that the crosswind pushes sideways on the car and the front wheels of the car immediately cock into the wind, preventing any important change in the car's path. It looks just as if the car is being stimulated by the wind, and is responding by turning its front wheels into the wind. Of course we know that neither the car nor the driver can sense the crosswind; this appearance of stimulus and response is an illusion. The true explanation is a little more complicated than the stimulus-response explanation would be, but not much more complicated.

But we can see now how the impression that stimuli cause responses could arise, even if the system in question is really a control system that works as just described."

-- William T. Powers, A Brief Introduction to Perceptual Control Theory: http://www.benchpress.com/aboutPCT.htm