Memory and sound marketing, what is the link?

Podcast script

Intro

A We Compoze creation. 

You've never forgotten the first vacation with your friends. Your clients shouldn't forget either. I am Sylvain Thizy and you are listening. Be memorable. The eight-component podcast that tells you everything? Yes, absolutely everything about the power of sound. Yes, Compose is a sound marketing agency. And with our composer platform, we're finally making sound identity accessible.

Sylvain Thizy

Today, we have the pleasure to welcome in our studios Aurore Malet Karas, doctor in neurosciences, sexologist and co-founder of the Vox Love application. You also did a thesis on memory. So we will try to understand how to become memorable. Can you introduce yourself and explain your background and how you went from neuroscience to a voice-based application?

Aurore Malet Karas

Hello. Thank you very much for inviting me. So as it was very well presented. I started in neurosciences, I did a double degree in biology and psychology to have a complete view of human behavior. And my favorite subjects were really first the understanding of temporal perception and then emotions, how does the brain understand, perceive, process emotions? And in parallel, I also discovered the whole field of memory and I did my thesis on the mechanisms of memory retrieval. So that kept me busy for a while. Afterwards, I came back on how to say, desires of youth, to do therapy. That's how I discovered sexology and now I work in private practice where I receive people on themes around the couple, emotions, sexuality. And in this context, I was approached by Mickaël Kwasnik, who is the founder of Vox Love, which is a dating application based on Voice. That's it.

Sylvain Thizy

Great! Well, that's a lot of things to do. Can you explain what memory is and how it works?

Aurore Malet Karas

So what about memory? There are really two things to really understand to understand what memory is. In reality, memory is the purpose of the nervous system. The purpose of the nervous system is to make connections between neurons and to make these connections last. So it can indeed be connections between two neurons. And we sometimes forget that it is also connections between the neuron and the muscle, between the nerve and the muscle. So in fact, we can really say that everything is memory. Memory is the basis of everything in neuroscience, it is the basis of everything, even in psychology, maybe even in biology in a more general way. And that's why it's so complex and why there are still many things to understand, to study, to scratch, in fact. So that's it. So that's really the first thing to understand. The second thing is that, in fact, there is not only one memory, but there are really many memories.

And that we can have several levels of memory? We will really define the memory according to the level of study where we will land. We can study memories at the molecular level or at the level of the receptors that allow the connection between neurons. We can study the memory at the level of cells, thus its size of cellular memory. We can study memory at the level of brain regions. At the level of psychology, we can even talk about an almost sociological memory, since the traditions that we have in a society are part of the memory. We talk about collective memory. We can also study the memory now with everything that is going to be artificial intelligence with deep learning, etc.. So in fact, there are many levels of memory.

Sylvain Thizy

The application is very large.

Aurore Malet Karas

This is really something that is central to cognitive science and this is really the level at which we will place ourselves. We can define a memory, that's it.

Sylvain Thizy

And so, there is a process of memorization like how does it work? How do you memorize a memory, an emotion or something that you hear?

Aurore Malet Karas

The memory will really function in three phases with at the beginning a phase of encoding of the information which will be perceived encoded. The second phase is really the storage and consolidation phase. The information is retained for a certain time for the third phase which is the recovery phase. The information will be recovered. At the same time, there is also the possibility of forgetting, whether it is in the encoding phase, the consolidation phase or the recovery phase. At each moment, the information can be forgotten. So, this sequence of encoding, consolidation and retrieval is really what makes the basic functioning of memory.

Sylvain Thizy

And as a result, it takes repetition for the encoding to go to the next step or not just once and you can do the whole process.

Aurore Malet Karas

You need both and it will depend. It can be indeed, the repetition, it is the royal way. The more we repeat, the more the brain will be able to consolidate the information, consolidate it several times, recover it well, etc... So repetition is extremely important. But we can also have cases where there is no need for repetition at all or a single presentation of the information will suffice because it is very salient. This appetite appealed to a lot of emotions and therefore, only one presentation. This will allow a very efficient encoding and therefore a very efficient retrieval afterwards.

Sylvain Thizy

OK, so we can say that the emotion and the intensity, a little bit of everything we live, is what also favors the memorization.

Aurore Malet Karas

Absolutely.

Sylvain Thizy

And in relation to this, are there different types of memorization depending on the senses, auditory, olfactory and others?

Aurore Malet Karas

Of course, it's really more at the psychological level. It is precisely this aspect that is very popularized. In fact, there is not only one memory, there are many memories. And when we talk about auditory memory, olfactory memory, visual memory, etc... it is really memories that are sensory. It is in fact the gateway to the nervous system. As a living being, we live in an environment and we have a lot of information, a lot of stimuli that are all around us. We will have visual stimuli, auditory stimuli, olfactory stimuli. And the brain is in fact constantly seeing what is going on, a bit like a computer, taking in all this information. It is always asking itself: is this relevant? Is it relevant? Is it dangerous or not? So we have to put ourselves in a more Darwinian context, in fact, we are still animals, we evolved in the forest. 

We are always asking ourselves: is the sound I hear a bear behind a rock? I must be careful to leave or not. Oh no, it's just the wind, it's fine, I can stay, I can continue to pick my little berries. So in fact, the brain is always perceiving many things in its environment and it is if the stimulus is relevant enough and if the attention is going to be directed towards this element which is salient. If it passes a threshold of salience, then we will really go into sensory memory and then we will be able to switch to a long-term memory encoding or not.

Sylvain Thizy

OK.

Aurore Malet Karas

So this is really important. So there are several levels of sensory memory.

Sylvain Thizy

And precisely, if there is one that is stronger than the other or not according to the senses or we do not have enough distance on it

Aurore Malet Karas

No, we have a little bit of hindsight now in neuroscience, even if neuroscience is still a young discipline, we are starting to have enough hindsight and we know that all the senses, in fact, are important that it is true that we are animals that are more visual than olfactory for example. But all the senses have a weight which is important and we will always use all the senses.

Sylvain Thizy

And precisely, when we remember a memory, the first person we met, the first time we did something, the memory, what does it look for? It will look for the emotion that we felt at the time, the senses, how we memorize all that, in fact.

Aurore Malet Karas

Then, we will really switch to the long-term memory systems where we will take information. How to say that we have events, that we have lived, past information to find them when we need them and there will be really other types of memory, other classifications. There, what you would know you refer to, it is what we call declarative memory. So these are memories that can be verbalized. In fact, there are two types of memory. We will have the memory of the facts. The semantic memory, it will be the memory of Paris. It is the capital of France, Rome, that of Italy. It will also be a personal semantic memory. So I know that my name is Aurore, I know that I have a cat, etc... And it's a bit like the memory that we learn at school. And that's what we have in the brain. We call them the temporal lobes which are dedicated to retain these types of information, to store them and to reuse them when we need them.

So typically, we learned our multiplication tables in school. When we are in the street or when we go shopping, we need to calculate the percentages of reduction. We learned, we can find this information there.

Sylvain Thizy

It's reflexes, borderline.

Aurore Malet Karas

This is not reflexes, it is really verbal knowledge. In the other declarative memory, the one you were referring to just before, it's what we call episodic memory, because it's an episode, it's the memory of when I kissed, well my first kiss, what happened or was I? Etc. This is one of the great discoveries of the XXᵉ century by a researcher named Endel Tulving, who worked on it his whole career. And basically, it's the memory of the facts, of what happened or when, how? Typically, I know that last Christmas, I was with my family, so-and-so said this, he made this joke, he opened this bottle of wine, etc.. So this is a memory that is very well known. In general, when we talk about memory or when we say I'm losing my memory, it's this memory that we're referring to and it's the one that is very fragile. Precisely, in all that will be dementia of the Alzheimer type, because in fact it is a memory which is very complex, because it calls upon a lot of modalities, exactly a lot of sensory modalities.

And precisely, even if it's also the memory of what happened or when, how in fact the same researcher, in fact to refine in fact that, his theory out loud, throughout his life. And now he has really defined on something that is very particular. Or in fact, it's an event that we are able to relive and the emotional intensity that we experienced during the encoding phase must be recovered at the time of recovery. The perfect example is Proust's madeleine or Proust when he feels the smell of tea or when he eats his madeleine, he relives his memory of when he was a child, with his grandmother etc...

Sylvain Thizy

These moments, we have access to them when we find the same information, when we hear the first music on which we are in, it is a slow. For example, it is by reliving elements like that that we relive exactly.

Aurore Malet Karas

So there, precisely, it is a memory which is very fragile and that is why it is that which reached in the dementias and even in the normal ageing because it is a memory which is very complex and it is very, how to say, a little protean. It can be approached by many sensory modalities. It can be a sound that will remind us, as you have just said, a music that will put us in this emotional state. It can be a smell, it can be a word, it can be seeing the person again, etc. This is another type of memory that we will call non-declarative memories, which is also very interesting for marketing, because in fact, it is really the memory of skills, of memory, of know-how. So it's going to be I know how to ride a bike, I know how to play the piano, we know how to play the flute, etc. Basically, it's a bit like riding a bike, you can't forget it.

The other day I was talking to a flautist. He said, "I'm taking up my flute again. Even though I haven't practiced for ten years, I have something in my fingers. And that's interesting because it's, it's the major part in fact of our memory which is based on our aptitudes, our know-how that we learn in fact as we go along, without really realizing it and typically it will be the memory of habits. It's the same neural reasons that will underlie these skills as the habits. The brain loves it, because in fact, when we make habits, we consume very little energy. And that, the brain, it loves. When we make some kind of highways, neuronal connections that will work and that will switch to a very fast mode of I don't think, it is not conscious.

Sylvain Thizy

It is lazy the brain.

Aurore Malet Karas

He's very lazy and he likes it when it does that and that, precisely in terms of consumption, it's often a bit of a bingo, it's a bit of a grail. I know that I think it was McDonald's that tried, that had developed, that wanted to make an experience, to go to McDonalds and that hoped that he was hungry, that had put Happy Meal and that had really wanted to create a very particular environment and to make the consumer live an experience anchored very young, so that people come back and make it a ritual and make it a habit. And that's very, very interesting because once you manage to anchor that in the consumer, it becomes part of the consumption habits. It's bingo in fact!

Sylvain Thizy

In fact, we are touching on the two notions in marketing that we are trying to achieve, that is the user experience and on the other hand also, the notoriety. Because these brands, with the constant repetition of different messages, that's how they anchor.

And just now, we were talking about it, for example mercurocrom, the bandage of heroes. How is it that it stayed in your head when for the last ten years, they don't necessarily broadcast it anymore?

Aurore Malet Karas

Especially since I haven't had a TV for ten years.

Sylvain Thizy

So, is it because when you get hurt, you think about that? How did they get that into people's heads? It's just the repetition.

Aurore Malet Karas

Now it's really just repetition. It's really, really hammering the information, hearing it ten times in a row, annoying people, getting tired of it. But in the end, it stays. And in order for the consolidation to really move from an encoding phase to an effective consolidation phase, repetition is really what allows you to say yes, to do this routine and to make extremely solid connections. Here, we're really on declarative memory because I can remember Mercurochrome, the hero bandage. I can declare it, I can tell. I remember this commercial, it will be something else again when, typically, I will take my favorite tea. When I'm going to be in the supermarket, I'm going to, I know where to go in the supermarket to get in the particular aisle my product. And that's it, that's really procedural memory.

Sylvain Thizy

OK, so that means that either we have the financial means and we hammer our message, or else we have to go for qualitative and more touching, we'll say emotion and in a sufficient level of intensity for the person to retain.

Aurore Malet Karas

That's exactly it, it's quantity versus quality.

Sylvain Thizy

And precisely, info or intoxication? We often talk about 7 repetitions in advertising to make people remember a message. What level are we at? This is it.

Aurore Malet Karas

It's a bit of both. In fact, it is both information and intoxication. In fact, as we said, for information to be consolidated, there must be repetition between the encoding phase and the storage phase. It is important that there be repetition so that it is done properly. And we arrived at the number of seven because scientists were interested early on in doing experiments to measure how well we can retain, better retain how much information we can retain, how many repetitions we need. In fact, we know that for verbal information, that is to say lists of words in general because it is the preferred tool of cognitive psychologists, of researchers in cognitive psychology, we are around 5 + or - 2 repetitions, but obviously, this will vary according to the individuals, according to the type of stimuli, according to the context, etc. Basically, what we know is that the more complex the information is, the more repetition is needed, the heavier it is, the more cognitively demanding it is in terms of energy, in terms of resources to be mobilized for the brain. The more repetition is needed.

Sylvain Thizy

OK, so we lose the simplest possible message to limit repetition. And precisely, in this message, because we work on the environment, we will say the sound identity which includes the interior message, there is an advertising message. It is often said that sex sells. Is it true or not?

Aurore Malet Karas

So yes, yes, yes, sex sells. In fact, as I was saying earlier, the brain is always looking around to see what stimuli are relevant in our environment. And a living being, it needs two things, it will really be to survive and to reproduce. So, necessarily, stimuli that are reproductive, therefore sexual, are considered very, very relevant for the brain. And we realized this very early on in cognitive psychology, it was something that was very much used in the world of advertising. In fact, we have regions in the brain called amygdala, which are very, very ancestral regions, that we share with many of the majority of vertebrates in fact, whose role, for a long time, was thought to be important for the olfactory system. In fact, this region will receive direct information from all the primary sensory cortices.

So, in fact, the information is perceived by sensory organs: the skin, the eyes, the taste buds, the sensory receptors in the nose, etc.. And it will go to the cortexes that we will call primary, which will just receive the information. Afterwards, for each primary cortex, it will go to other more complex cortices and then it will go to other regions in the brain which will try to give a meaning to the information.

The amygdala receives sensory information from all the primary cortices. They are one of the rare regions that are capable of doing this integration and so the amygdala will activate as soon as there is a stimulus, a stimulus that will be judged as salient, as relevant. So obviously a sensory stimulus, a stimulus that is frightening, a stimulus that can bring a form of disgust, for example, something that must make us react. The amygdala will be activated and it will say OK, brain, you concentrate, you switch your attention on this stimulus because it is important. And sexuality, obviously, is very, how to say very very salient. So there are a lot of subtleties to it. Afterwards, it is also important to note because we are talking about memory. The amygdala is in the continuity of regions that are very important for declarative memory, called the hippocampus, which is really where declarative memories are encoded.

There is really a kind of highway of connections, very strong connections between neurons, between the amygdala and the hippocampus. It is really two regions that are in continuity, very very interconnected. And so in fact, if it is very salient, we will also send a message to the hippocampi. At the same time, we will say to parts like the prefrontal cortex which will say OK, you concentrate on the information to process this stimulus, but at the same time, it is important, brain you retain because potentially at this place, it is dangerous this person there, it is interesting what you are doing there, it is interesting. You have to remember it to do it again. So that's also why it's, how to say, interesting in advertising. Because obviously, as there is emotion, it is directly linked in fact to memory and also emotion and memory are also linked in an anatomical way in fact.

Sylvain Thizy

So it uses sex. It's a reflex, more like a Darwinian reflex, where we pick up information because it's fundamental. Is it the same for men and women? Is it different and is it anything, a certain level of intensity? We don't fall into a form of rejection, on the contrary, not into a memorization.

Aurore Malet Karas

If? Yes, it is. In fact, we know that there are subtleties and that men and women do not react in the same way. For example, women will reject sexual stimuli, especially when it is very raw, when it is not suggested, whereas men will take it in a neutral or positive way. On the other hand, men and women, their attention is really going to be turned as soon as there is a sexual stimulus, so in general it's really going to be nudity or suggested sexual intercourse. So typically we see a man and a woman. We understand from the position, the position of the bodies, the looks, the expression of the faces, that there is a sexual situation. So that, men and women will see it, will perceive it, will integrate it. But how will they react to it? It really depends.

And there is a study that was done in the United States in 2005-2006, which showed that, in fact, women rejected all advertisements that used sexuality, unless they were luxury products. When it's luxury products, apparently, it's seen as quite positive.

Sylvain Thizy

In everything that is perfume in particular, say a lot, but it is more sensuality than sexuality.

Aurore Malet Karas

So women apparently prefer anything that is more suggestive. OK, but there are still ads where there are really naked or very, very undressed women that have done very, very well.

Sylvain Thizy

Yes, but we can say that the use of sex in advertising, we should not rush into it either because it is sparingly. It depends on our target and it depends on what we display too.

Aurore Malet Karas

Exactly, it depends on the message you want to convey, the meaning you want to give. It depends on the target, exactly, it's really, be careful, because you can't or it can be counterproductive.

Sylvain Thizy

One can say that it is not only Darwinian. There is also a context, perhaps?

Aurore Malet Karas

Yes, anyway, sexuality, it is really to understand sexuality well, you have to understand that there is an aspect that is biological and an aspect that is cultural. And in how to say, the representations of sexuality, it is also something that is very new, that is very specific to the second half of the XXᵉ century. And it still has a sultry connotation because it was censored, it was banned, etc.. At the very least, it's transgressive and so as a result, the fact that it's transgressive, that too, will catch the eye.

Sylvain Thizy

This is not allowed.

Aurore Malet Karas

Because it's forbidden, because we don't have the right, because we have this connotation in the society which makes it inevitably be, how to say, it will cause an emotion.

Sylvain Thizy

Knowing that in addition the place of the woman is repositioned permanently especially at the moment. So there is perhaps also a form of, it will certainly move also in the years which arrive, because today, the woman object, one will say a little, we are a little on the end of this concept there.

Aurore Malet Karas

Yes, we are completely on the end of that concept there. On the other hand, you also have to understand what happened, is what the advertisers of the second part of the XXᵉ century did. In fact, they just realized that to put that, to put sexuality, nudity and naked women, in fact, consumers, it provokes them a reaction. All they wanted to do was to provoke the reaction and then sell. And that was not a will to use the woman, it was just that in fact, we realized that the sex that makes sell. If we had realized that I don't know, chairs, leeks, that was what would make the consumer react more. We would have chairs and leeks absolutely everywhere. So there is also this aspect to understand, to play down a little and not demonize it. It is more because we are in this type of society where it was tolerated to have an image of the woman a little objectified, that of the blow there were not safeguards necessary to prevent that to be done absolutely all the time, at all the levels, as that was made. But that was not at all done by will to crush the woman at all.

Sylvain Thizy

Precisely this week I saw that there was a polemic which was born on the outfits of the volleyball players at the Olympic Games precisely in relation to that or some defended that these outfits were made to make the audimat. So there is a part of truth, but it was not necessarily, here, we know that we do something, it creates the ratings and they remained there.

Aurore Malet Karas

They left it at that, and it's really important to understand that too, because that's just what was intended, absolutely not out of a desire to crush the woman. On the other hand, there were no safeguards by saying, are we going to question a little bit what we are doing? Do we have the right to put girls in positions, in such sexualized situations? Is it good or is it not good? It's really an ethical position that should have been taken after the fact, but which was not done at the time. And it's very good that we're revisiting it a little bit now.

Sylvain Thizy

Very well in relation to the, to the music. Are there things that are more easily remembered than others in this sense? Does it say anything about the music that has sad or happy connotations? Does this have an impact on memorization or not at all?

Aurore Malet Karas

First of all, you have to understand that musical abilities will vary according to the individual. There are people who will be very musical and people who will not be musical at all. So that creates a very large variation in the individual field in the population. The more emotions there are obviously, the more it will be retained. I don't know if there are really, there must be studies on the more, how to say happy versus the more sad. If there are some that are better retained than others, to my knowledge and I don't think there are any that have very, very big differences.

Sylvain Thizy

But it also depends on the product.

Aurore Malet Karas

Exactly. It depends on the product, it depends on the target. It depends on what you mean by musicality too. It's really case by case. Everything is, it's very, very complex. We don't understand everything either in the perception of the music and the encoding of the music, it's quite, quite mysterious. What we do know is, how to say it, the music that is liked in adolescence. The musical tastes of the adolescence will last in fact, and that is important. People who like metal in their teenage years will end up liking metal later on and often, the musical tastes will really be made during this period which is not very important because at the developmental level, during the teenage years, the whole brain is very plastic and sets up and fixes itself in a certain way. And we will find these structures, this architecture later.

Sylvain Thizy

So adolescence is structuring in terms of musical taste and what we will like. That's important to remember if it depends on who you're targeting in the advertising. When we make a sound identity at the beginning, we create a sound logo and we try to do it with some notes. And we realize that the simpler it is, the more it is retained. Because it's in line with what was said earlier that the brain is lazy. So in fact it's that, it answers this logic, yes.

Aurore Malet Karas

What you're talking about is really the sensory memory. So primary, really the gateway to memory, auditory memory, sensory memory, so really short term memory. In fact, it is going to be important to go into long-term memory. If it is relevant, if it is salient, the brain will say OK, this is important, so I will switch it to long-term memory. On the other hand, it's true that we also know this very well and it's also on this that repetition will play a role to counterbalance, that is if the information is too rich if it's too complex. If, for example, in addition to having three notes you have ten, then in fact you have fields, counterfields, something that is complex, it is very heavy for the brain and the brain will either miss it, or listen to it, but not succeed in retaining it, etc... So this is where you have to counterbalance with repetition for example.

Sylvain Thizy

And so it's important to have the ability to reproduce what you hear to memorize or not.

Aurore Malet Karas

It's always important to have a recovery capability if there's not the recovery phase and replication is part of the recovery, it's useless. The goal is really to have this three-step thing: encoding, consolidation/storage and recovery. If any of the steps are missing, we are not in memory, at least not in long-term memory, which is important, we are doing it for what we are interested in here. Afterwards, everything is trained and also knows how to say. A musician, for example, will be quite capable of remembering musical phrases that will last several seconds. A person who is not educated at all, who has never worked on this aspect. Four seconds is going to be the end of the world.

Sylvain Thizy

With a short message, with notes so that we can store, memorize, repeat and reproduce.

Aurore Malet Karas

That's it.

Sylvain Thizy

We said everything. So you participated in the creation of the application Vox Love, which is based on a dating site based on voice. So, why did you start with the voice? It's because of this power, a little bit of sound.

Aurore Malet Karas

There is also the importance of the sound because nowadays, there are a lot of applications, dating, dating sites. People are very tired. We talk about dating fatigue. At the moment, people are very really exhausted by going on applications, talking with people. There have been a lot of studies and we, when we had done user experiments, we had a lot of feedback from people who told us that we are wasting our time, that the conversations we can have with people are very empty. And often, what happens is that when people talk to the person, talk to each other, by text, by message, it can go well. But in fact, when we see each other, in fact, as it is very disembodied, the moment, we realize, in fact, we know in less than a second, it's the feeling that is made or not. And so, in fact, it is a very important waste of time for the users and that makes that many stop, are disappointed, disengage and it can even be, and that I see it a lot in practice, in therapy. It can even be quite difficult from a moral point of view, from an emotional point of view, because when it's been several months, or even several years, that this type of experience has been chained together, it's very, it's very tiring for the people. Some people end up having symptoms of depression. So, the goal was really to do the meeting in a different way and to save time for the people and to really put some incarnation in the meeting. Because what makes the charm of in the real life dating is really, you fall in love, you meet the person. There is something much more carnal in fact.

Sylvain Thizy

It's multisensory, because in fact, the basic postulate was that dating sites are currently based on photos and that the auditory is more descriptive of the personality than the visual.

Aurore Malet Karas

Exactly, in fact. Plus now, the photos can be completely filtered and arranged at a very good angle, etc. For the moment, with the voice, it's still a bit difficult to completely disguise or completely change the voice. At least not in a natural way if we can't retouch it as instantly as with filters at the moment, and above all, there is a lot of information that will pass through the voice and that will not pass through the image, through the voice. We will have a very good idea of the personality of the person, especially through his rhythm. Knowing right away if the person is dynamic or not, which we won't necessarily see with a photo.

Sylvain Thizy

So how does it work? People introduce themselves with different questions. They have one minute to introduce themselves. How does it work?

Aurore Malet Karas

There are challenges. When you create your profile, you will record voice clips and we have proposed messages to people like: "Introduce yourself in one minute. Your favorite food is...". As a result, people will be able to record these little voice capsules. And when we look at the profiles of other users, we will see the photo. First, we'll see the voice capsule. Once we have studied, we have heard the voice capsule, we will have the photo and we will be able to like or not, match or not.

Sylvain Thizy

Very interesting. If tomorrow, we should summarize for a brand. The ideal is to use music to create emotion, to have a message that is hyper relevant, that is salient. So it's not necessarily just sex. What are the different niches you can use?

Aurore Malet Karas

It's really going to depend on the product and what's being sold. So it will really depend on the emotions. On the other hand, we have to be careful not to be too emotional because in this case, we will only retain the emotion in memory. The perfect example of this is really everything that is a traumatic memory or in fact in a trauma. The emotion is so great that it will override the other types of information and in the end, the person will only retain the emotional information, but not the rest. So if we are in something too emotional, it is not necessarily good either. You have to know how to dose it a little bit. Earlier, we were talking about things that were very, how can I put it, very well retained at times. For example, there was a commercial for a chocolate mousse with a little boy who was very cute, who said that he had eaten all the chocolate mousse and that it was everywhere. And he said, "You're pushing it a little too far, Maurice.

We are absolutely unable to say now from whom, for what was the product, what was the brand? Was it the chocolate mousse? So-and-so or so-and-so? We do not know. We only remember the advertising, the information. Earlier, we talked about Yannick Noah, who had been the muse of a brand. We had just remembered Yannick Noah who had done something. And it is sometimes something.

Sylvain Thizy

It's hyper subtle the nuance. Having a clear, emotional message, but not too prominent. It's a bit of a complex mix.

Aurore Malet Karas

And it's really case by case.

Sylvain Thizy

Today, what do we know about memory? 10%, 20%, 50%.

Aurore Malet Karas

It's very difficult because you don't know what you don't know. If you know, you think you know 90%. In fact, we know 10%. So no, what we know quite well now is how is an encoding mechanism formed? How is the encoding done or how can we understand the mechanisms of consolidation of information? We also know, and this is very important to remember, that in fact, when we recover information, it is not something passive. Retrieving information means many things, it can be, I recognize the information, I know that I have already seen it. So I know that I've used this product before, I recognize it. There is also being able to spontaneously recall information. So, in fact, the retrieval part is something that we know very, very little about at the moment in neuroscience. Why are we going to have information that we are able to recover and not others? That is still a mystery.

Sylvain Thizy

What we call when we do awareness studies, what is spontaneous or what is assisted, that is to say that we will give a list of brands, some of them will say, yes I remember, I remember or else we will spontaneously get one. Today, we don't know globally why some people manage to recover one directly.

Aurore Malet Karas

It is quite complex. There is no consensus at the moment, at least in theory, on the recovery mechanisms. There are things we know. Does it work in all cases? Not necessarily. That's it.

Sylvain Thizy

And so these are things that you work on in terms of research.

Aurore Malet Karas

On the things I worked on. Now I don't do that anymore, but I worked a lot on it.

Sylvain Thizy

So that's in the next podcast. In ten years we'll have the answers to these questions.

Aurore Malet Karas

I hope so. That would be nice.

Sylvain Thizy

In any case, thank you very much Aurore for this moment.

Aurore Malet Karas

Thank you.

Sylvain Thizy

And then I say to you soon for the next episode, be memorable with We Compoze.