It is based on the projective hypothesis, which holds that a good deal of thought, especially thought with emotional content, is processed in images and metaphors rather than words.26 In contrast to surveys and focus groups, the most widely used techniques in marketing research, which rely heavily on verbal stimuli, the ZMET uses a visual method. Gerald Zaltman of Olson Zaltman Associates explains that ‘‘consumers can’t tell you what they think because they just don’t know. Their deepest thoughts, the ones that account for their behavior in the marketplace, are unconscious [and] . . . primarily visual.’’