Vol. 56, Issue 1 - Howard University School of Law

Cognitive Foreign Policyimprove recall for a test since memory naturally fades over time, butcan be recollected more easily by repetition and association to informationalready stored in long-term memory. 105 Also, emotions suchas stress, fear, anger, or happiness place the brain’s neurons on alert,and release different chemicals in the brain to strengthen connectionsamong neurons. 106 Emotional events may invoke clearer memoriesand more rapid recall. 107 Similarly, peoples’ emotional reactions andadjustments to events depend on memory. 108Marketing, public relations specialists, and even political punditsrecognize that frequent repetition produces familiar messages that areaccepted as true with increased credibility. 109 Advertisers echo thesame slogans, jingles, and repetitive selling points, 110 and consultantsadvise politicians to repetitively iterate the same phrase so that consistencyand familiarity with the message appears in the media. 111 TheBush administration engaged the same approach of “framing” persua-105. Sensory and short-term data are temporarily stored in the brain’s neural connectionsand become available for cognitive processes by repetition and association to more permanentinformation. REISBERG, supra note 98, at 7, 14, 68; see also WILLINGHAM, supra note 103, at 138,163-64, 190-92, 226-28; Molly J. Walker Wilson, Behavioral Decision Theory and Implications forthe Supreme Court’s Campaign Finance Jurisprudence, 31 CARDOZO L. REV. 679, 688 (2010).Some people have better memories, and each person’s memory changes with age, environmentalconditions, stresses, and diseases (e.g. Alzheimer’s), but the biological process of remembering,decay of memory, and forgetting is the same. Id.106. See TAYLOR, supra note 97, at 153, 164; see also WILLINGHAM, supra note 103, at 281(stating “emotional memories” result from “emotional conditioning”). Anxiety can influencepersonality, emotions, and cognition. See generally MICHAEL EYSENCK, ANXIETY AND COGNI-TION (1997); STANLEY D. RACHMAN, ANXIETY (2004).107. REISBERG, supra note 98, at 180-84, 221-22; see also A. Burke, F. Heuer & D. Reisberg,Remembering Emotional Events, 20 MEMORY & COGNITION 277-90 (1992), available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1508053; L. Cahill, J.L. McGaugh, Mechanisms of EmotionalArousal and Lasting Declarative Memory, 21 TRENDS IN NEUROSCIENCE 294-99 (1998), availableat http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9683321.108. REISBERG, supra note 98, at 7.109. See PRATKANIS & ARONSON, supra note 7, at 183 (citing R.B. Zajonc, The AttitudinalEffects of More Exposure, 9 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 1-27 (1968)) (“[T]he more aperson is exposed to an item, the more attractive it is.”). Increased exposure and repetition canimplant false beliefs. Contra Davis v. FCC, 554 U.S. 724, 752 (2008) (Stevens, J., dissenting)(“[F]looding the airwaves with slogans and sound bites may well do more to obscure the issuesthan to enlighten listeners.”); REISBERG, supra note 98, at 179, 210.110. See PACKARD, supra note 5; PRATKANIS & ARONSON, supra note 7, at 24-25, 179 (explainingthat advertising books apply behavioral psychology principles) (“[R]epetition, intensity(use bright and loud ads), association (link content to the recipient’s experiences), and ingenuity(make the ad distinctive) . . . to improve the effectiveness of the message.”); see also Brown,supra note 7, at 1641 (“[T]he symbol comes to be more than a conduit through which the persuasivepower of the advertising is transmitted, and acquires a potency, a ‘commercial magnetism,’of its own.”); Walter D. Scott, The Psychology of Advertising, ATLANTIC, Jan. 1904.111. THOMAS PATTERSON, OUT OF ORDER 147-49 (1994); see also PRATKANIS & ARONSON,supra note 7, at 179.2012] 21