Sam Barnett is a 26-year-old hedge fund chief executive and pro tennis player, and also a PhD student studying neuroscience in marketing at Northwestern. His current research includes monitoring people's brains as they watch presidential debates. That's where CNN's Brian Stelter caught up with him. Barnett was showing a room full of brain-monitored Democrats, Republicans, and independents one of the Republican presidential debates, and one thing stood out pretty clearly: Everyone's neural activity shot up when Donald Trump was talking.
"Everyone in the room is sharing some sort of neural bond," Barnett said. "Everyone is feeling the same kind of attention, the same kind of underlying passion, at least." Trump led audience engagement among everyone — Democrats, Republicans, independents, women — except men; Marco Rubio engaged men slightly more than Trump. Barnett compared the Trump effect to putting dogs in TV ads. "People of all different walks of life like seeing a dog in a commercial," he said. "It's cute and engaging and interesting, and, you know, maybe people are feeling similarly about Donald Trump." More realistically, Stelter said it probably reflected Trump's skills honed over a decade of hosting a reality TV program. You can watch Barnett demonstrate his research below. Peter Weber
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Border agents crash Newsom redistricting kickoffSpeed Read Armed federal Border Patrol agents amassed outside the venue where the California governor and other Democratic leaders were gathered
-
Man charged for hoagie attack as DC fights takeoverSpeed Read The Trump administration filed felony charges against a man who threw a Subway sandwich at a federal agent
-
Trump BLS nominee floats ending key jobs reportSpeed Read On Fox News, E.J. Antoni suggested scrapping the closely watched monthly jobs report
-
Trump picks conservative BLS critic to lead BLSspeed read He has nominated the Heritage Foundation's E.J. Antoni to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics
-
Trump takes over DC police, deploys National GuardSpeed Read The president blames the takeover on rising crime, though official figures contradict this concern
-
Trump sends FBI to patrol DC, despite falling crimeSpeed Read Washington, D.C., 'has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world,' Trump said
-
Trump officials reinstating 2 Confederate monumentsSpeed Read The administration has plans to 'restore Confederate names and symbols' discarded in the wake of George Floyd's 2020 murder
-
Trump nominates Powell critic for vacant Fed seatspeed read Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump's Council of Economic Advisers and a fellow critic of Fed chair Jerome Powell, has been nominated to fill a seat on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors
