PARIS (AFP) ― Companies in the near future will be able to test public reaction to advertisements, music and films before they are released by monitoring the brain signals of a select group as they watch a trial.
So say psychologists who on Tuesday unveiled the results of an unusual set of experiments into so-called neural signals.
Their idea is that by scanning brain activity in just a few individuals who watch a test commercial or TV program, this will predict how a wider audience will also react to it.
The same method could also be applied to test political ideas on focus groups.
Reporting in the journal Nature Communications, a team led by Jacek Dmochowski at Stanford University in California asked 16 volunteers aged 19-32 to watch TV as their brain signals were recorded.
They watched the 2010 premiere episode of the popular TV series “The Walking Dead” and a set of commercials which first aired in American football’s Super Bowl in 2012 and 2013.
The volunteers wore electroencephalography sensors to monitor electrical activity in the various parts of the brain.
They were also scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging, which maps brain activity by pinpointing cerebral blood flow.
What emerged was a strong correlation in the pattern of signals, showing that the individuals were all focused ― “engaged” ― in what they saw.
Their level of interest matched the response of the wider public to the show and to the commercials as measured by Twitter and the Nielsen TV audience rating.
Of course, to be focused on something does not necessarily reveal whether you liked it or disliked it.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
