"Whether the volunteers like the flower scent or not didn't matter," Hersh says, "Some reported that they hated the smell, but they still were more likely to buy the shoes in the scented room."
The study included 144 volunteers who were asked to compare what they believed were conventionally and organically produced chocolate sandwich cookies, plain yogurt and potato chips.
In one study, Pepperell and his collaborators asked volunteers to decide how "powerful" they considered an artwork to be, and whether they saw anything familiar in the piece.
Volunteers were told to think about yawning, while they breathed either normal air, pure oxygen, or an air mixture with an above-normal level of carbon dioxide.
Volunteers were told to think about yawning while they breathed either normal air, pure oxygen, or an air mixture with an above-normal level of carbon dioxide.