Neuromarketing: the hope and hype of neuroimaging in business

Effectiveness assessment of maternal and neonatal health video clips in knowledge transfer using neuromarketing tools: A randomized crossover trial

Audiovisual educational material has been used effectively as a knowledge translation strategy in patient education. Given the need to impact maternal mortality rates, 12 video clips related to maternal and neonatal health information were designed based on the results of a previous systematic review (SR). The content was formulated based on clinical practice guideline recommendations and validated following a formal consensus methodology. This study evaluated the effectiveness of knowledge transfer from the 12 video clips in terms of attention, emotional response, and recall by using neuroscience tools. In a randomized cross-over trial, 155 subjects (pregnant women, non-pregnant women, and men) received random sequences of 13 video clips, including a control video clip. Participants’ attention levels were evaluated through eye tracking, their emotional reactions were monitored by electrodermal activity and pupillary diameter, and their recall was tested via a questionnaire. An analysis was performed to evaluate differences in the groups and between the video clips and the control clip using variance analysis models that considered period, sequence, and carry-over effects. Results revealed that fixation length was greater in women than in men, while the greatest emotional effects occurred in men. All three groups had good recall results, without any significant differences between them. Although the sequencing did influence attentional processes, no carry-over effect was demonstrated. However, a differential effect was noted among video clips in all three outcomes, that is, when adjusted for group, level of education, and having had children. The control clip generated less attention, emotional reaction, and recall than the experimental video clips. The video clips about maternal and neonatal health were shown to be effective in the transference and comprehension of information. Therefore, cognitive neuroscience techniques are useful in evaluating knowledge translation strategies through audiovisual formats.

A gateway to consumers' minds: Achievements, caveats, and prospects of electroencephalography-based prediction in neuromarketing

In the last decade, the field of consumer neuroscience, or neuromarketing, has been flourishing, with numerous publications, academic programs, initiatives, and companies. The demand for objective neural measures to quantify consumers' preferences and predict responses to marketing campaigns is ever on the rise, particularly due to the limitations of traditional marketing techniques, such as questionnaires, focus groups, and interviews. However, research has yet to converge on a unified methodology or conclusive results that can be applied in the industry. In this review, we present the potential of electroencephalography (EEG)-based preference prediction. We summarize previous EEG research and propose features which have shown promise in capturing the consumers' evaluation process, including components acquired from an event-related potential design, inter-subject correlations, hemispheric asymmetry, and various spectral band powers. Next, we review the latest findings on attempts to predict preferences based on various features of the EEG signal. Finally, we conclude with several recommended guidelines for prediction. Chiefly, we stress the need to demonstrate that neural measures contribute to preference prediction beyond what traditional measures already provide. Second, prediction studies in neuromarketing should adopt the standard practices and methodology used in data science and prediction modeling that is common in other fields such as computer science and engineering. This article is categorized under: Economics > Interactive Decision-Making Economics > Individual Decision-Making Psychology > Prediction Neuroscience > Cognition.

Social Rewards: From Basic Social Building Blocks to Complex Social Behavior

Humans are social creatures, engaging almost constantly in social behaviors that serve ultimate social goals, such as forming strong bonds with one another. However, most social behaviors provide only incremental progress toward an ultimate goal. Instead, the drive to engage in any individual social act may derive from its proximal value rather than its ultimate goal. Thus, this proximal value forms the foundation on which the complexities of human sociality are built. We describe two complementary approaches for using proximal social rewards to understand social behaviors and their ultimate goals: (a) decontextualizing social rewards—paring down complex social interactions can help identify which basic building blocks remain valuable even in minimalistic contexts—and (b) recontextualizing social rewards—reintroducing motivational and contextual factors into the study of social experience can help identify how proximal rewards serve their ultimate function. We discuss how this dual-approach framework can inform future research by bridging basic social building blocks and real-world social goals.

The Application of Mobile fNIRS in Marketing Research-Detecting the "First-Choice-Brand" Effect

Recent research in the field of "neuro-marketing" shows promise to substantially increase knowledge on marketing issues for example price-perception, advertising efficiency, branding and shopper behaviour. Recently, an innovative and mobile applicable neuroimaging method has been proposed, namely functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). However, this method is, in the research field of marketing, still in its infancy and is, consequently, lacking substantial validity. Against this background, this research work applied a convergent validity approach to challenge the validity of (mobile) fNIRS in the field of "neuro-marketing" and consumer neuroscience. More precisely, we aim to replicate a robust and well-investigated neural effect previously detected with fMRI-namely the "first-choice-brand" effect-by using mobile fNIRS. The research findings show that mobile fNIRS appears to be an appropriate neuroimaging method for research in the field of "neuro-marketing" and consumer neuroscience. Additionally, this research work presents guidelines, enabling marketing scholars to utilise mobile fNIRS in their research work.

A neuroscientific perspective on basic psychological needs

OBJECTIVE

Self-determination theory's (SDT) most basic propositions are, first, that all people possess an inherent set of psychological needs and, second, that autonomy, competence, and relatedness are the three critical psychological satisfactions needed to maintain and promote personal growth and well-being. In this article, we identify the neural basis of the psychological needs and, in doing so, seek to advance the integration of SDT and neuroscience.

METHOD

We examine the neural underpinnings of SDT-based motivational states and traits for autonomy, competence, and relatedness. To study motivational states, participants are exposed to situational conditions known to affect their psychological needs, and neuroscience methods (e.g., fMRI) are used to examine changes in their brain activity. To study motivational traits, participants complete self-report trait measures that are then correlated with their brain activity observed during need-satisfying activities.

RESULTS

For both motivational states and traits and across all three needs, intrinsic satisfaction is associated with striatum-based reward processing, anterior insula-based subjective feelings, and the integration of these subjective feelings with reward-based processing.

CONCLUSIONS

Psychological need satisfaction is associated with striatum activity, anterior insula activity, and the functional coactivation between these two brain areas. Given these findings, it is now clear that several opportunities exist to integrate SDT motivational constructs with neuroscientific study, so we suggest eight new questions for future research.

Resilience, trust, and civic engagement in the post-CCSVI era

Background

Scientific and financial investments in chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency (CCSVI) research have been made to address both the hope for and scepticism over this interventional strategy for MS. Despite limited evidence in support of the CCSVI hypothesis, the funding of clinical research was responsive to a demand by the public rarely seen in the history of medicine. We characterize patient perspectives about the CCSVI research trajectory, with particular attention to its impact on other non-pharmaceutical areas of MS research with a focus on stem cell interventions.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews with 20 MS patients across Canada who did not have CCSVI interventions. Interviews were analysed for recurring themes and individual variations using the constant comparative approach.

Results

Participants had a critical view of the divestment of funds from longstanding research to support CCSVI trials. They retain a sense of optimism, however, about emerging evidence for stem cell interventions for MS, and highlight the need for greater caution and conscientious communication of advances in medicine and science.

Conclusions

The unrealized hopes for CCSVI challenged but did not undermine the resilience of patient communities. The narrative that unfolded highlights the importance of drawing a socially-minded space for public participation in science.

A fMRI study on the impact of advertising for flavored e-cigarettes on susceptible young adults

BACKGROUND

E-cigarettes are sold in flavors such as "skittles," "strawberrylicious," and "juicy fruit," and no restrictions are in place on marketing e-cigarettes to youth. Sweets/fruits depicted in e-cigarette advertisements may increase their appeal to youth and interfere with health warnings. This study tested a brain biomarker of product preference for sweet/fruit versus tobacco flavor e-cigarettes, and whether advertising for flavors interfered with warning labels.

METHODS

Participants (N = 26) were college-age young adults who had tried an e-cigarette and were susceptible to future e-cigarette use. They viewed advertisements in fMRI for sweet/fruit and tobacco flavor e-cigarettes, menthol and regular cigarettes, and control images of sweets/fruits/mints with no tobacco product. Cue-reactivity was measured in the nucleus accumbens, a brain biomarker of product preference. Advertisements randomly contained warning labels, and recognition of health warnings was tested post-scan. Visual attention was measured using eye-tracking.

RESULTS

There was a significant effect of e-cigarette condition (sweet/tobacco/control) on nucleus accumbens activity, that was not found for cigarette condition (menthol/regular/control). Nucleus accumbens activity was greater for sweet/fruit versus tobacco flavor e-cigarette advertisements and did not differ compared with control images of sweets and fruits. Greater nucleus accumbens activity was correlated with poorer memory for health warnings.

CONCLUSIONS

These and exploratory eye-tracking findings suggest that advertising for sweet/fruit flavors may increase positive associations with e-cigarettes and/or override negative associations with tobacco, and interfere with health warnings, suggesting that one way to reduce the appeal of e-cigarettes to youth and educate youth about e-cigarette health risks is to regulate advertising for flavors.

Neuroforecasting Aggregate Choice

Advances in brain-imaging design and analysis have allowed investigators to use neural activity to predict individual choice, while emerging Internet markets have opened up new opportunities for forecasting aggregate choice. Here, we review emerging research that bridges these levels of analysis by attempting to use group neural activity to forecast aggregate choice. A survey of initial findings suggests that components of group neural activity might forecast aggregate choice, in some cases even beyond traditional behavioral measures. In addition to demonstrating the plausibility of neuroforecasting, these findings raise the possibility that not all neural processes that predict individual choice forecast aggregate choice to the same degree. We propose that although integrative choice components may confer more consistency within individuals, affective choice components may generalize more broadly across individuals to forecast aggregate choice.

Three Research Strategies of Neuroscience and the Future of Legal Imaging Evidence

Neuroscientific imaging evidence (NIE) has become an integral part of the criminal justice system in the United States. However, in most legal cases, NIE is submitted and used only to mitigate penalties because the court does not recognize it as substantial evidence, considering its lack of reliability. Nevertheless, we here discuss how neuroscience is expected to improve the use of NIE in the legal system. For this purpose, we classified the efforts of neuroscientists into three research strategies: cognitive subtraction, the data-driven approach, and the brain-manipulation approach. Cognitive subtraction is outdated and problematic; consequently, the court deemed it to be an inadequate approach in terms of legal evidence in 2012. In contrast, the data-driven and brain manipulation approaches, which are state-of-the-art approaches, have overcome the limitations of cognitive subtraction. The data-driven approach brings data science into the field and is benefiting immensely from the development of research platforms that allow automatized collection, analysis, and sharing of data. This broadens the scale of imaging evidence. The brain-manipulation approach uses high-functioning tools that facilitate non-invasive and precise human brain manipulation. These two approaches are expected to have synergistic effects. Neuroscience has strived to improve the evidential reliability of NIE, with considerable success. With the support of cutting-edge technologies, and the progress of these approaches, the evidential status of NIE will be improved and NIE will become an increasingly important part of legal practice.

Frontal Brain Asymmetry and Willingness to Pay

Consumers frequently make decisions about how much they are willing to pay (WTP) for specific products and services, but little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying such calculations. In this study, we were interested in testing whether specific brain activation—the asymmetry in engagement of the prefrontal cortex—would be related to consumer choice. Subjects saw products and subsequently decided how much they were willing to pay for each product, while undergoing neuroimaging using electroencephalography. Our results demonstrate that prefrontal asymmetry in the gamma frequency band, and a trend in the beta frequency band that was recorded during product viewing was significantly related to subsequent WTP responses. Frontal asymmetry in the alpha band was not related to WTP decisions. Besides suggesting separate neuropsychological mechanisms of consumer choice, we find that one specific measure—the prefrontal gamma asymmetry—was most strongly related to WTP responses, and was most coupled to the actual decision phase. These findings are discussed in light of the psychology of WTP calculations, and in relation to the recent emergence of consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing.

ERP evidence for consumer evaluation of copycat brands

Copycat brands mimic brand leaders to free ride on the latter's equity. However, little is known regarding if and how consumers confuse copycat as leading brand in purchasing. In this study, we applied a word-pair evaluation paradigm in which the first word was a brand name (copycat vs. normal brand both similar with a leading brand in category), followed by a product name (near vs. far from the leading brand’s category). Behavioral results showed that, when the product is near the leader’s category, the copycat strategy (CN) was more preferred compared to the normal brand (NN) but not different in the far product condition (CF and NF). Event-related potential (ERP) data provided further insight into the mechanism. The N400 amplitude elicited by the CN condition was significantly smaller than NN. However, when products are far from the leader’s category, there was no significant difference in N400 amplitudes. For the late positive component (LPC), the CN gave rise to a larger amplitude than the CF. The N400 amplitude was suggested to reflect the categorization process, and the LPC demonstrated the recollection process in long-term memory. These findings imply that the copycat brand strategy is generally only effective when products are within the category of the leading brand, which offers important implications for marketing practices.

On the primacy and irreducible nature of first-person versus third-person information

In this essay, we will support the claim that at the current level of scientific advancement a) some first-person accounts cannot be reduced to their third-person neural and psychophysiological correlates and b) that these first-person accounts are the only information to reckon when it is necessary to analyse qualia contents. Consequently, for many phenomena, first-person accounts are the only reliable source of information available and the knowledge of their neural and psychophysical correlates don't offer any additional information about them.

Neural Correlates of Direct Access Trading in a Real Stock Market: An fMRI Investigation

Background: While financial decision making has been barely explored, no study has previously investigated the neural correlates of individual decisions made by professional traders involved in real stock market negotiations, using their own financial resources.

Aim: We sought to detect how different brain areas are modulated by factors like age, expertise, psychological profile (speculative risk seeking or aversion) and, eventually, size and type (Buy/Sell) of stock negotiations, made through Direct Access Trading (DAT) platforms.

Subjects and methods: Twenty male traders underwent fMRI while negotiating in the Italian stock market using their own preferred trading platform.

Results: At least 20 decision events were collected during each fMRI session. Risk averse traders performed a lower number of financial transactions with respect to risk seekers, with a lower average economic value, but with a higher rate of filled proposals. Activations were observed in cortical and subcortical areas traditionally involved in decision processes, including the ventrolateral and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC, dlPFC), the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), the nucleus accumbens (NAcc), and dorsal striatum. Regression analysis indicated an important role of age in modulating activation of left NAcc, while traders' expertise was negatively related to activation of vlPFC. High value transactions were associated with a stronger activation of the right PPC when subjects' buy rather than sell. The success of the trading activity, based on a large number of filled transactions, was related with higher activation of vlPFC and dlPFC. Independent of chronological and professional age, traders differed in their attitude to DAT, with distinct brain activity profiles being detectable during fMRI sessions. Those subjects who described themselves as very self-confident, showed a lower or absent activation of both the caudate nucleus and the dlPFC, while more reflexive traders showed greater activation of areas involved in strategic decision making.

Discussion: The neural correlates in DAT are similar to those observed in other decision making contexts. Trading is handled as a well-learned automatic behavior by expert traders; for those who mostly rely on heuristics, cognitive effort decreases, and transaction speed increases, but decision efficiency lowers following a poor involvement of the dlPFC.

Consumer Neuroscience: Past, Present, and Future

In this article, we give an overview of the growing field of consumer neuroscience and discuss when and how it is useful to integrate neurophysiological data into research conducted in business fields. We first discuss the foundational elements of consumer neuroscience and showcase a range of studies that highlight the ways that neuroscientific research and theory can add to existing lines of research in marketing. Next, we discuss the new domains and questions that brain data allow us to address, such as an emerging ability to predict market-level behavior in a range of decision types. We conclude by providing insights about the emerging frontiers in the field that we think will have an important impact on our understanding of marketing behavior, as well as organizational behavior.

Electroencephalographic, Heart Rate, and Galvanic Skin Response Assessment for an Advertising Perception Study: Application to Antismoking Public Service Announcements

The evaluation of advertising, products, and packaging is traditionally performed through methods based on self-reports and focus groups, but these approaches often appear poorly accurate in scientific terms. Neuroscience is increasingly applied to the investigation of the neurophysiological bases of the perception of and reaction to commercial stimuli to support traditional marketing methods. In this context, a particular sector or marketing is represented by public service announcements (PSAs). The objective of this protocol is to apply electroencephalography (EEG) and autonomic signal analysis to study responses to selected antismoking PSAs. Two EEG indices were employed: the frontal alpha band EEG asymmetry (the Approach Withdrawal (AW) index) and the frontal theta (effort index). Furthermore, the autonomic Emotional Index (EI) was calculated, as derived from the Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Heart Rate (HR) signals. The present protocol describes a series of operational and computational steps required to properly estimate, through the aforementioned indices, the emotional and cerebral reaction of a group of subjects towards a selected number of antismoking PSAs. In particular, a campaign characterized by a symbolic communication style (classified as "awarded" on the basis of the prizes received by specialized committees) obtained the highest approach values, as estimated by the AW index. A spot and an image belonging to the same PSA campaign based on the "fear arousing appeal" and with a narrative/experiential communication style (classified as "effective" on the basis of the economical/health-related improvements promoted) reported the lowest and highest effort values, respectively. This is probably due to the complexity of the storytelling (spot) and to the immediateness of the image (a lady who underwent a tracheotomy). Finally, the same "effective" campaign showed the highest EI values, possibly because of the empathy induced by the testimonial and the explicitness of the message.

When Brain Beats Behavior: Neuroforecasting Crowdfunding Outcomes

Although traditional economic and psychological theories imply that individual choice best scales to aggregate choice, primary components of choice reflected in neural activity may support even more generalizable forecasts. Crowdfunding represents a significant and growing platform for funding new and unique projects, causes, and products. To test whether neural activity could forecast market-level crowdfunding outcomes weeks later, 30 human subjects (14 female) decided whether to fund proposed projects described on an Internet crowdfunding website while undergoing scanning with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Although activity in both the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and medial prefrontal cortex predicted individual choices to fund on a trial-to-trial basis in the neuroimaging sample, only NAcc activity generalized to forecast market funding outcomes weeks later on the Internet. Behavioral measures from the neuroimaging sample, however, did not forecast market funding outcomes. This pattern of associations was replicated in a second study. These findings demonstrate that a subset of the neural predictors of individual choice can generalize to forecast market-level crowdfunding outcomes—even better than choice itself.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Forecasting aggregate behavior with individual neural data has proven elusive; even when successful, neural forecasts have not historically supplanted behavioral forecasts. In the current research, we find that neural responses can forecast market-level choice and outperform behavioral measures in a novel Internet crowdfunding context. Targeted as well as model-free analyses convergently indicated that nucleus accumbens activity can support aggregate forecasts. Beyond providing initial evidence for neuropsychological processes implicated in crowdfunding choices, these findings highlight the ability of neural features to forecast aggregate choice, which could inform applications relevant to business and policy.

From the Brain to the Field: The Applications of Social Neuroscience to Economics, Health and Law

Social neuroscience aims to understand the biological systems that underlie people’s thoughts, feelings and actions in light of the social context in which they operate. Over the past few decades, social neuroscience has captured the interest of scholars, practitioners, and experts in other disciplines, as well as the general public who more and more draw upon the insights and methods of social neuroscience to explain, predict and change behavior. With the popularity of the field growing, it has become increasingly important to consider the validity of social neuroscience findings as well as what questions it can and cannot address. In the present review article, we examine the contribution of social neuroscience to economics, health, and law, three domains with clear societal relevance. We address the concerns that the extrapolation of neuroscientific results to applied social issues raises within each of these domains, and we suggest guidelines and good practices to circumvent these concerns.

The role of testosterone and estrogen in consumer behavior and social & economic decision making: A review

A contribution to a special issue on Hormones and Human Competition.This manuscript reviews the current literature on the actions of the steroid hormones testosterone and estradiol in shaping humans' behavior within two applied contexts, specifically consumer behavior and decision making (both social and economic). The theoretical argument put forth is that steroids shape these everyday behaviors and choices in service to being more competitive in achieving long-term goals related to resource acquisition, mating success, and social dominance. In addition, a discussion of the increased research focus on the role of steroids in other applied business domains will highlight the relevant applications of basic science discoveries in behavioral endocrinology.

Functional MRI in Awake Dogs Predicts Suitability for Assistance Work

The overall goal of this work was to measure the efficacy of fMRI for predicting whether a dog would be a successful service dog. The training and imaging were performed in 49 dogs entering service training at 17–21 months of age. 33 dogs completed service training and were matched with a person, while 10 were released for behavioral reasons (4 were selected as breeders and 2 were released for medical reasons.) After 2 months of training, fMRI responses were measured while each dog observed hand signals indicating either reward or no reward and given by both a familiar handler and a stranger. Using anatomically defined ROIs in the caudate, amygdala, and visual cortex, we developed a classifier based on the dogs’ subsequent training outcomes. The classifier had a positive predictive value of 94% and a negative predictive value of 67%. The area under the ROC curve was 0.91 (0.80 with 4-fold cross-validation, P = 0.01), indicating a significant predictive capability. The magnitude of response in the caudate was positively correlated with a successful outcome, while the response in the amygdala depended on the interaction with the visual cortex during the stranger condition and was negatively correlated with outcome (higher being associated with failure). These results suggest that, as indexed by caudate activity, successful service dogs generalize associations to hand signals regardless who gives them but without excessive arousal as measured in the amygdala.

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) studies have become increasingly popular both with clinicians and researchers as they are capable of providing unique insights into brain functions. However, multiple technical considerations (ranging from specifics of paradigm design to imaging artifacts, complex protocol definition, and multitude of processing and methods of analysis, as well as intrinsic methodological limitations) must be considered and addressed in order to optimize fMRI analysis and to arrive at the most accurate and grounded interpretation of the data. In practice, the researcher/clinician must choose, from many available options, the most suitable software tool for each stage of the fMRI analysis pipeline. Herein we provide a straightforward guide designed to address, for each of the major stages, the techniques, and tools involved in the process. We have developed this guide both to help those new to the technique to overcome the most critical difficulties in its use, as well as to serve as a resource for the neuroimaging community.

EEG Spectral Dynamics of Video Commercials: Impact of the Narrative on the Branding Product Preference

Neuromarketing has become popular and received a lot of attention. The quality of video commercials and the product information they convey to consumers is a hotly debated topic among advertising agencies and product advertisers. This study explored the impact of advertising narrative and the frequency of branding product exposures on the preference for the commercial and the branding product. We performed electroencephalography (EEG) experiments on 30 subjects while they watched video commercials. The behavioral data indicated that commercials with a structured narrative and containing multiple exposures of the branding products had a positive impact on the preference for the commercial and the branding product. The EEG spectral dynamics showed that the narratives of video commercials resulted in higher theta power of the left frontal, bilateral occipital region, and higher gamma power of the limbic system. The narratives also induced significant cognitive integration-related beta and gamma power of the bilateral temporal regions and the parietal region. It is worth noting that the video commercials with a single exposure of the branding products would be indicators of attention. These new findings suggest that the presence of a narrative structure in video commercials has a critical impact on the preference for branding products.

Neuroscience-Inspired Design: From Academic Neuromarketing to Commercially Relevant Research

Companies and organizations the world over wish to understand, predict, and ultimately change the behavior of those whom they interact with, advise, or else provide services for: be it the accident-prone driver out on the roads, the shopper bombarded by a myriad of alternative products on the supermarket shelf, or the growing proportion of the population who are clinically obese. The hope is that by understanding more about the mind, using recent advances in neuroscience, more effective interventions can be designed. But just what insights can a neuroscience-inspired approach offer over-and-above more traditional, not to mention contemporary, behavioral methods? This article focuses on three key areas: neuroergonomics, neuromarketing, and neurogastronomy. The utility of the neuroscience-inspired approach is illustrated with a number of concrete real-world examples. Practical challenges with commercial neuromarketing research, including the cost, timing, ethics/legality and access to scanners (in certain countries), and the limited ecological validity of the situations in which people are typically tested are also discussed. This commentary highlights a number of the key challenges associated with translating academic neuroscience research into commercial neuromarketing applications.

Awake canine fMRI predicts dogs' preference for praise vs food

Dogs are hypersocial with humans, and their integration into human social ecology makes dogs a unique model for studying cross-species social bonding. However, the proximal neural mechanisms driving dog–human social interaction are unknown. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging in 15 awake dogs to probe the neural basis for their preferences for social interaction and food reward. In a first experiment, we used the ventral caudate as a measure of intrinsic reward value and compared activation to conditioned stimuli that predicted food, praise or nothing. Relative to the control stimulus, the caudate was significantly more active to the reward-predicting stimuli and showed roughly equal or greater activation to praise vs food in 13 of 15 dogs. To confirm that these differences were driven by the intrinsic value of social praise, we performed a second imaging experiment in which the praise was withheld on a subset of trials. The difference in caudate activation to the receipt of praise, relative to its withholding, was strongly correlated with the differential activation to the conditioned stimuli in the first experiment. In a third experiment, we performed an out-of-scanner choice task in which the dog repeatedly selected food or owner in a Y-maze. The relative caudate activation to food- and praise-predicting stimuli in Experiment 1 was a strong predictor of each dog’s sequence of choices in the Y-maze. Analogous to similar neuroimaging studies of individual differences in human social reward, our findings demonstrate a neural mechanism for preference in domestic dogs that is stable within, but variable between, individuals. Moreover, the individual differences in the caudate responses indicate the potentially higher value of social than food reward for some dogs and may help to explain the apparent efficacy of social interaction in dog training.

Discrete classification technique applied to TV advertisements liking recognition system based on low-cost EEG headsets

Background

In this paper a new approach is applied to the area of marketing research. The aim of this paper is to recognize how brain activity responds during the visualization of short video advertisements using discrete classification techniques. By means of low cost electroencephalography devices (EEG), the activation level of some brain regions have been studied while the ads are shown to users. We may wonder about how useful is the use of neuroscience knowledge in marketing, or what could provide neuroscience to marketing sector, or why this approach can improve the accuracy and the final user acceptance compared to other works.

Methods

By using discrete techniques over EEG frequency bands of a generated dataset, C4.5, ANN and the new recognition system based on Ameva, a discretization algorithm, is applied to obtain the score given by subjects to each TV ad.

Results

The proposed technique allows to reach more than 75 % of accuracy, which is an excellent result taking into account the typology of EEG sensors used in this work. Furthermore, the time consumption of the algorithm proposed is reduced up to 30 % compared to other techniques presented in this paper.

Conclusions

This bring about a battery lifetime improvement on the devices where the algorithm is running, extending the experience in the ubiquitous context where the new approach has been tested.

Using event related potentials to identify a user's behavioural intention aroused by product form design

The capacity of product form to arouse user's behavioural intention plays a decisive role in further user experience, even in purchase decision, while traditional methods rarely give a fully understanding of user experience evoked by product form, especially the feeling of anticipated use of product. Behavioural intention aroused by product form designs has not yet been investigated electrophysiologically. Hence event related potentials (ERPs) were applied to explore the process of behavioural intention when users browsed different smart phone form designs with brand and price not taken into account for mainly studying the brain activity evoked by variety of product forms. Smart phone pictures with different anticipated user experience were displayed with equiprobability randomly. Participants were asked to click the left mouse button when certain picture gave them a feeling of behavioural intention to interact with. The brain signal of each participant was recorded by Curry 7.0. The results show that pictures with an ability to arouse participants' behavioural intention for further experience can evoke enhanced N300 and LPPs (late positive potentials) in central-parietal, parietal and occipital regions. The scalp topography shows that central-parietal, parietal and occipital regions are more activated. The results indicate that the discrepancy of ERPs can reflect the neural activities of behavioural intention formed or not. Moreover, amplitude of ERPs occurred in corresponding brain areas can be used to measure user experience. The exploring of neural correlated with behavioural intention provide an accurate measurement method of user's perception and help marketers to know which product can arouse users' behavioural intention, maybe taken as an evaluating indicator of product design.

A Neural Mechanism of Preference Shifting Under Zero Price Condition

In everyday life, free products have a strong appeal to us, even if we do not need them. Behavioral studies demonstrated that people have a tendency to switch their preference from preferred more expensive products to less preferable, cheaper alternatives, when the cheaper option becomes free. However, the neural representation of this behavioral anomaly called “Zero price” is still unclear. Using fMRI, we studied subjects while they performed binary preference choice task for items with different prices. We found that zero-related change of preference was associated with activation of the choice network, which includes inferior parietal lobule (IPL), posterior cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex. Moreover, the amount of activation in medial prefrontal cortex was positively correlated with the subjective happiness score of getting free products. Our findings suggest that the Zero-price effect is driven by affective evaluations during decision-making.

Robotic Nudges: The Ethics of Engineering a More Socially Just Human Being

Robots are becoming an increasingly pervasive feature of our personal lives. As a result, there is growing importance placed on examining what constitutes appropriate behavior when they interact with human beings. In this paper, we discuss whether companion robots should be permitted to "nudge" their human users in the direction of being "more ethical". More specifically, we use Rawlsian principles of justice to illustrate how robots might nurture "socially just" tendencies in their human counterparts. Designing technological artifacts in such a way to influence human behavior is already well-established but merely because the practice is commonplace does not necessarily resolve the ethical issues associated with its implementation.

Functional brain imaging predicts public health campaign success

Mass media can powerfully affect health decision-making. Pre-testing through focus groups or surveys is a standard, though inconsistent, predictor of effectiveness. Converging evidence demonstrates that activity within brain systems associated with self-related processing can predict individual behavior in response to health messages. Preliminary evidence also suggests that neural activity in small groups can forecast population-level campaign outcomes. Less is known about the psychological processes that link neural activity and population-level outcomes, or how these predictions are affected by message content. We exposed 50 smokers to antismoking messages and used their aggregated neural activity within a 'self-localizer' defined region of medial prefrontal cortex to predict the success of the same campaign messages at the population level (n = 400,000 emails). Results demonstrate that: (i) independently localized neural activity during health message exposure complements existing self-report data in predicting population-level campaign responses (model combined R(2) up to 0.65) and (ii) this relationship depends on message content-self-related neural processing predicts outcomes in response to strong negative arguments against smoking and not in response to compositionally similar neutral images. These data advance understanding of the psychological link between brain and large-scale behavior and may aid the construction of more effective media health campaigns.