Does Product Placement Change Television Viewers' Social Behavior?

To what extent are television viewers affected by the behaviors and decisions they see modeled by characters in television soap operas? Collaborating with scriptwriters for three prime-time nationally-broadcast Spanish-language telenovelas, we embedded scenes about topics such as drunk driving or saving money at randomly assigned periods during the broadcast season. Outcomes were measured unobtrusively by aggregate city- and nation-wide time series, such as the number of Hispanic motorists arrested daily for drunk driving or the number of accounts opened in banks located in Hispanic neighborhoods. Results indicate that while two of the treatment effects are statistically significant, none are substantively large or long-lasting. Actions that could be taken during the immediate viewing session, like online searching, and those that were relatively more integrated into the telenovela storyline, specifically reducing cholesterol, were briefly affected, but not behaviors requiring sustained efforts, like opening a bank account or registering to vote

Frontal midline theta transcranial alternating current stimulation enhances early consolidation of episodic memory

Abstract Evidence implicating theta rhythms in declarative memory encoding and retrieval, together with the notion that both retrieval and consolidation involve memory reinstatement or replay, suggests that post-learning theta rhythm modulation can promote early consolidation of newly formed memories. Building on earlier work employing theta neurofeedback, we examined whether theta-frequency transcranial alternating stimulation (tACS) can engender effective consolidation of newly formed episodic memories, compared with beta frequency stimulation or sham control conditions. We compared midline frontal and posterior parietal theta stimulation montages and examined whether benefits to memory of theta upregulation are attributable to consolidation rather than to retrieval processes by using a washout period to eliminate tACS after-effects between stimulation and memory assessment. Four groups of participants viewed object pictures followed by a free recall test during three study-test cycles. They then engaged in tACS (frontal theta montage/parietal theta montage/frontal beta montage/sham) for a period of 20 min, followed by a 2-h break. Free recall assessments were conducted after the break, 24 h later, and 7 days later. Frontal midline theta-tACS induced significant off-line retrieval gains at all assessment time points relative to all other conditions. This indicates that theta upregulation provides optimal conditions for the consolidation of episodic memory, independent of mental-state strategies

Administrative data charting three behaviors over the course of three months before and after randomly-assigned telenovela product placement.

<p>The top figure depicts numbers of arrests of Hispanic individuals for driving under the influence, z-scored and averaged across 7 major U.S. cities. The occurrences of product placement scenes depicting a “Don’t drink and drive” message are represented by the figure’s vertical lines. The bottom two figures show number of Hispanics who registered to vote over time, and the number of savings accounts opened at Hispanic consumer base branches of the bank that was featured in the telenovela. Those two figures test the efficacy of the “Register to vote” and “Open a bank account” messages, inserted into the randomly assigned broadcast periods as indicated by vertical lines. All three figures show negligible effects of the product placement on these behaviors. See SI for time-series regression results and for plots depicting one year of data as opposed to 3 months (presented here for ease of visual inspection).</p

Restricted to prime-time hours, unique visits to the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, which was featured in one novela as part of the “Seek out university scholarships” message.

<p>The solid line tracks the absolute number of all visits to the website in a month-long period before, during, and after the scholarship product placement scenes, which are indicated by the vertical lines. Unique visits to the website spike on each day that the scholarship message is broadcast on the telenovela.</p

Messages, assigned broadcast periods, air dates, and sample outcome measurements.

<p>Messages, assigned broadcast periods, air dates, and sample outcome measurements.</p

Survey data from a Hispanic respondent panel.

<p>self-reported behavioral responses related to the “Eat healthy: lower your cholesterol” message show an effect of this product placement broadcast on respondent’s propensity to watch their diet and eat fat-free, low-fat, or low cholesterol food, and buy low-fat food when watching their diet (product placement scene broadcasts are indicated by vertical lines).</p

The Lys-Specific Molecular Tweezer, CLR01, Modulates Aggregation of the Mutant p53 DNA Binding Domain and Inhibits Its Toxicity

The tumor suppressor p53 plays a unique role as a central hub of numerous cell proliferation and apoptotic pathways, and its malfunction due to mutations is a major cause of various malignancies. Therefore, it serves as an attractive target for developing novel anticancer therapeutics. Because of its intrinsically unstable DNA binding domain, p53 unfolds rapidly at physiological temperature. Certain mutants shift the equilibrium toward the unfolded state and yield high-molecular weight, nonfunctional, and cytotoxic β-sheet-rich aggregates that share tinctorial and conformational similarities with amyloid deposits found in various protein misfolding diseases. Here, we examined the effect of a novel protein assembly modulator, the lysine (Lys)-specific molecular tweezer, CLR01, on different aggregation stages of misfolded mutant p53 <i>in vitro</i> and on the cytotoxicity of the resulting p53 aggregates in cell culture. We found that CLR01 induced rapid formation of β-sheet-rich, intermediate-size p53 aggregates yet inhibited further p53 aggregation and reduced the cytotoxicity of the resulting aggregates. Our data suggest that aggregation modulators, such as CLR01, could prevent the formation of toxic p53 aggregates