Oral versus short-term intratympanic prednisolone therapy for idiopathic sudden hearing loss.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the therapeutic effectiveness of an intratympanic (IT) steroid protocol compared to a systemic steroid protocol. METHODS: A total of 265 consecutive patients presenting unilateral idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss were divided into 2 groups. One group comprised 131 patients enrolled between May 2009 and May 2010, and the other consisted of 134 patients enrolled between June 2010 and June 2011; a total of 48 patients were excluded among the 2 groups. The first group received oral prednisone for 8 days in tapering doses; the second group had IT prednisolone at a dose of 62.5 mg/ml once a day for 3 consecutive days. Audiological examinations were performed at study entry and 30 days after the beginning of therapy. Mean pure tone audiometry (PTA) of both groups and hearing outcomes following the criteria of Furuhashi et al. [Clin Otolaryngol 2002;27:458-463] and Siegel [Otolaryngol Clin North Am 1975;8:467-473] were investigated. RESULTS: The strong efficacy of steroid therapy was evident in both groups, observing both PTA and hearing threshold improvement. The evaluation of the hearing outcomes shows a significantly better result for the short-term IT protocol; this result is ascribable to two types of audiometric curves: down- and up-sloping. CONCLUSION: The results show a significant efficacy of both steroid therapeutic approaches. There was no significant difference in PTA improvement between the 2 study groups; the short-term IT protocol led to better results in the evaluation of the hearing outcomes (following the criteria of Siegel and Furuhashi et al.) for up- and down-sloping audiometric curves.

Bridging the Gap between Psychophysiological and Audiological Factors in the Assessment of Tinnitus: An EEG Investigation in the Beta Band.

BACKGROUND: Despite substantial progress in investigating its psychophysical complexity, tinnitus remains a scientific and clinical enigma. The present study, through an ecological and multidisciplinary approach, aims to identify associations between electroencephalographic (EEG) and psycho-audiological variables. METHODS: EEG beta activity, often related to stress and anxiety, was acquired from 12 tinnitus patients (TIN group) and 7 controls (CONT group) during an audio cognitive task and at rest. We also investigated psychological (SCL-90-R; STAI-Y; BFI-10) and audiological (THI; TQ12-I; Hyperacusis) variables using non-parametric statistics to assess differences and relationships between and within groups. RESULTS: In the TIN group, frontal beta activity positively correlated with hyperacusis, parietal activity, and trait anxiety; the latter is also associated with depression in CONT. Significant differences in paranoid ideation and openness were found between groups. CONCLUSIONS: The connection between anxiety trait, beta activity in the fronto-parietal cortices and hyperacusis provides insights into brain functioning in tinnitus patients, offering quantitative descriptions for clinicians and new multidisciplinary treatment hypotheses.

Two are better than one: Differences in cortical EEG patterns during auditory and visual verbal working memory processing between Unilateral and Bilateral Cochlear Implanted children.

Despite the proven effectiveness of cochlear implant (CI) in the hearing restoration of deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, to date, extreme variability in verbal working memory (VWM) abilities is observed in both unilateral and bilateral CI user children (CIs). Although clinical experience has long observed deficits in this fundamental executive function in CIs, the cause to date is still unknown. Here, we have set out to investigate differences in brain functioning regarding the impact of monaural and binaural listening in CIs compared with normal hearing (NH) peers during a three-level difficulty n-back task undertaken in two sensory modalities (auditory and visual). The objective of this pioneering study was to identify electroencephalographic (EEG) marker pattern differences in visual and auditory VWM performances in CIs compared to NH peers and possible differences between unilateral cochlear implant (UCI) and bilateral cochlear implant (BCI) users. The main results revealed differences in theta and gamma EEG bands. Compared with hearing controls and BCIs, UCIs showed hypoactivation of theta in the frontal area during the most complex condition of the auditory task and a correlation of the same activation with VWM performance. Hypoactivation in theta was also observed, again for UCIs, in the left hemisphere when compared to BCIs and in the gamma band in UCIs compared to both BCIs and NHs. For the latter two, a correlation was found between left hemispheric gamma oscillation and performance in the audio task. These findings, discussed in the light of recent research, suggest that unilateral CI is deficient in supporting auditory VWM in DHH. At the same time, bilateral CI would allow the DHH child to approach the VWM benchmark for NH children. The present study suggests the possible effectiveness of EEG in supporting, through a targeted approach, the diagnosis and rehabilitation of VWM in DHH children.

Sleep architecture variation in chronic tinnitus patients.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to evaluate the sleep architecture and its possible alterations in chronic tinnitus patients, and investigate any possible correlation between sleep architecture modifications and tinnitus perception, adaptation, and the degree of discomfort in these patients. DESIGN: In a prospective, case-control, nonrandomized study, 18 patients affected by chronic tinnitus were compared with a homogeneous control group consisting of 15 healthy subjects. The experimental group was enrolled at the Tinnitus ambulatory at Policlinico Umberto I Department of Sensory Organs, and the control group was composed of voluntary subjects. A full overnight polysomnography was performed on both groups. Tinnitus patients answered two questionnaires: the tinnitus handicap inventory (THI) and a questionnaire concerning their subjective sleep quality, tinnitus intensity before bedtime, tinnitus intensity at remembered nocturnal wake-up periods, and tinnitus intensity at morning wake-up. Controls completed only the sleep quality questionnaire. RESULTS: All tinnitus patients had a statistically significant alteration in sleep stages. Average percentage of stage 1 + stage 2 was 85.4% ± 6.3, whereas, in the control group, the average percentage of stage 1 + stage 2 was 54.9 ± 11.2 (p < 0.001). Stages 3 and 4 and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep was lacking in all tinnitus patients with an average percentage of 6.4 ± 4.9 of REM sleep, and 6.4 ± 4.9 of stages 3 + 4. The control group showed an average percentage of 21.5 ± 3.6 of REM sleep and 21.5 ± 3.6 of stages 3 + 4 (p < 0.001). No correlation was found between the decrease of REM and the increase of the THI score in the tinnitus group (r = 0.04). However, a mild correlation was found between the increase of light sleep (stage 1 + stage 2) and the THI score reported by the tinnitus group. Therefore, patients with light sleep report a higher THI score (r = 0.4). CONCLUSIONS: The significant alteration of sleep parameters assessed in tinnitus patients underlines the necessity to consider an adequate therapy that could improve patients' sleep quality and also opens avenues for further investigations.

Facilitating or disturbing? An investigation about the effects of auditory frequencies on prefrontal cortex activation and postural sway.

Auditory stimulation activates brain areas associated with higher cognitive processes, like the prefrontal cortex (PFC), and plays a role in postural control regulation. However, the effects of specific frequency stimuli on upright posture maintenance and PFC activation patterns remain unknown. Therefore, the study aims at filling this gap. Twenty healthy adults performed static double- and single-leg stance tasks of 60s each under four auditory conditions: 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 Hz, binaurally delivered through headphones, and in quiet condition. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy was used to measure PFC activation through changes in oxygenated hemoglobin concentration, while an inertial sensor (sealed at the L5 vertebra level) quantified postural sway parameters. Perceived discomfort and pleasantness were rated through a 0-100 visual analogue scale (VAS). Results showed that in both motor tasks, different PFC activation patterns were displayed at the different auditory frequencies and the postural performance worsened with auditory stimuli, compared to quiet conditions. VAS results showed that higher frequencies were considered more discomfortable than lower ones. Present data prove that specific sound frequencies play a significant role in cognitive resources recruitment and in the regulation of postural control. Furthermore, it supports the importance of exploring the relationship among tones, cortical activity, and posture, also considering possible applications with neurological populations and people with hearing dysfunctions.

Listening Effort in Tinnitus: A Pilot Study Employing a Light EEG Headset and Skin Conductance Assessment during the Listening to a Continuous Speech Stimulus under Different SNR Conditions.

Background noise elicits listening effort. What else is tinnitus if not an endogenous background noise? From such reasoning, we hypothesized the occurrence of increased listening effort in tinnitus patients during listening tasks. Such a hypothesis was tested by investigating some indices of listening effort through electroencephalographic and skin conductance, particularly parietal and frontal alpha and electrodermal activity (EDA). Furthermore, tinnitus distress questionnaires (THI and TQ12-I) were employed. Parietal alpha values were positively correlated to TQ12-I scores, and both were negatively correlated to EDA; Pre-stimulus frontal alpha correlated with the THI score in our pilot study; finally, results showed a general trend of increased frontal alpha activity in the tinnitus group in comparison to the control group. Parietal alpha during the listening to stimuli, positively correlated to the TQ12-I, appears to reflect a higher listening effort in tinnitus patients and the perception of tinnitus symptoms. The negative correlation between both listening effort (parietal alpha) and tinnitus symptoms perception (TQ12-I scores) with EDA levels could be explained by a less responsive sympathetic nervous system to prepare the body to expend increased energy during the "fight or flight" response, due to pauperization of energy from tinnitus perception.

Virtual and Reality: A Neurophysiological Pilot Study of the Sarcophagus of the Spouses.

Art experience is not solely the observation of artistic objects, but great relevance is also placed on the environment in which the art experience takes place, often in museums and galleries. Interestingly, in the last few years, the introduction of some forms of virtual reality (VR) in museum contexts has been increasing. This has solicited enormous research interest in investigating any eventual differences between looking at the same artifact either in a real context (e.g. a museum) and in VR. To address such a target, a neuroaesthetic study was performed in which electroencephalography (EEG) and autonomic signals (heart rate and skin conductance) were recorded during the observation of the Etruscan artifact "Sarcophagus of the Spouses", both in the museum and in a VR reproduction. Results from EEG analysis showed a higher level of the Workload Index during observation in the museum compared to VR (p = 0.04), while the Approach-Withdrawal Index highlighted increased levels during the observation in VR compared to the observation in the museum (p = 0.03). Concerning autonomic indices, the museum elicited a higher Emotional Index response than the VR (p = 0.03). Overall, preliminary results suggest a higher engagement potential of the museum compared to VR, although VR could also favour higher embodiment than the museum.

Music in noise recognition: An EEG study of listening effort in cochlear implant users and normal hearing controls.

Despite the plethora of studies investigating listening effort and the amount of research concerning music perception by cochlear implant (CI) users, the investigation of the influence of background noise on music processing has never been performed. Given the typical speech in noise recognition task for the listening effort assessment, the aim of the present study was to investigate the listening effort during an emotional categorization task on musical pieces with different levels of background noise. The listening effort was investigated, in addition to participants' ratings and performances, using EEG features known to be involved in such phenomenon, that is alpha activity in parietal areas and in the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), that includes the Broca's area. Results showed that CI users performed worse than normal hearing (NH) controls in the recognition of the emotional content of the stimuli. Furthermore, when considering the alpha activity corresponding to the listening to signal to noise ratio (SNR) 5 and SNR10 conditions subtracted of the activity while listening to the Quiet condition-ideally removing the emotional content of the music and isolating the difficulty level due to the SNRs- CI users reported higher levels of activity in the parietal alpha and in the homologous of the left IFG in the right hemisphere (F8 EEG channel), in comparison to NH. Finally, a novel suggestion of a particular sensitivity of F8 for SNR-related listening effort in music was provided.

An electrophysiological approach to tinnitus interpretation.

INTRODUCTION: Serotonin seems to play a central role in tinnitus. The intensity dependence of auditory evoked potential (IDAP) is considered an index of central serotonergic activity in the auditory cortex. The higher the steepness of the N1/P2 component amplitude-stimulus function slope (N1/P2 ASF slope as calculated by IDAP), the lower the central serotonergic activity. Similarly, the N1 amplitude-stimulus function slope (N1 ASF slope) was investigated. Auditory brainstem responses (ABR) examine the auditory system functionality from the periphery and through the brainstem, where serotonergic projections have been identified. OBJECTIVES: Assessing whether tinnitus perception neurotransmitters activity inbalance could be investigated by an electrophysiological approach. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten normoacousic tinnitus patients and 14 healthy controls were included in the study. Subjects underwent EEG (IDAP) recording, ABR recording and psychometric questionnaires administration. RESULTS: N1/P2 ASF slope and N1ASF slope tended to have a greater steepness in patients. N1ASF slope was significantly correlated with ABR wave V and interpeak III-V latencies in patients. ABR wave V and interpeak III-V latencies were significantly longer in patients than in controls. CONCLUSION: N1/P2 ASF slope, N1 ASF slope and ABR components appear to be useful electrophysiologic methods to study possible functional alterations related to the serotonergic activity.

School wellbeing and psychological characteristics of online learning in families of children with and without hearing loss during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study investigated the psychological characteristics of online learning on Italian students with and without hearing loss (HL) and on their parents, who were forced into isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic. An online survey collected information on socio-demographic data and opinions concerning online learning from 61 children (mean age 11; 25 males, 36 females), including 43 with HL and also from their parents; additionally, school wellbeing and anxiety were assessed. The results showed that, in both the student and parent groups, no significant effect of HL on school wellbeing and anxiety was found. Additionally, in parents, State Anxiety was significantly higher than Trait Anxiety, suggesting one possible impact of lockdown on psychological wellbeing. Differences due to HL were observed and discussed in correlation analyses. The Authors believe that this study is the first contribution to the psychological evaluation of the impact of online learning on families with hearing-impaired children, from the perspective of a successful, inclusive didactic.

Gamma-Band Modulation in Parietal Area as the Electroencephalographic Signature for Performance in Auditory-Verbal Working Memory: An Exploratory Pilot Study in Hearing and Unilateral Cochlear Implant Children.

This pilot study investigates the neurophysiological patterns of visual and auditory verbal working memory (VWM) in unilateral cochlear implant users (UCIs). We compared the task-related electroencephalogram (EEG) power spectral density of 7- to 13-year-old UCIs (n = 7) with a hearing control group (HC, n = 10) during the execution of a three-level n-back task with auditory and visual verbal (letters) stimuli. Performances improved as memory load decreased regardless of sensory modality (SM) and group factors. Theta EEG activation over the frontal area was proportionally influenced by task level; the left hemisphere (LH) showed greater activation in the gamma band, suggesting lateralization of VWM function regardless of SM. However, HCs showed stronger activation patterns in the LH than UCIs regardless of SM and in the parietal area (PA) during the most challenging audio condition. Linear regressions for gamma activation in the PA suggest the presence of a pattern-supporting auditory VWM only in HCs. Our findings seem to recognize gamma activation in the PA as the signature of effective auditory VWM. These results, although preliminary, highlight this EEG pattern as a possible cause of the variability found in VWM outcomes in deaf children, opening up new possibilities for interdisciplinary research and rehabilitation intervention.

Esports and Visual Attention: Evaluating In-Game Advertising through Eye-Tracking during the Game Viewing Experience.

In recent years, technological advances and the introduction of social streaming platforms (e.g., Twitch) have contributed to an increase in the popularity of esports, a highly profitable industry with millions of active users. In this context, there is little evidence, if any, on how users perceive in-game advertising (IGA) and other key elements of the game viewing experience (e.g., facecam and chat) in terms of visual attention. The present eye-tracking study aimed at investigating those aspects, and introducing an eye-tracking research protocol specifically designed to accurately measure the visual attention associated with key elements of the game viewing experience. Results showed that (1) the ads available in the game view (IGAs) are capable altogether to attract 3.49% of the users' visual attention; (2) the chat section draws 10.68% of the users' visual attention and more than the streamer's face, known as a powerful attentional driver; (3) the animated ad format elicits higher visual attention (1.46%) than the static format (1.12%); and (4) in some circumstances, the visual attention elicited by the ads is higher in the "Goal" scenes (0.69%) in comparison to "No-Goal" scenes (0.51%). Relevant managerial implications and future directions for the esports industry are reported and discussed.

Neuroscientific Methods for Exploring User Perceptions While Dealing With Mobile Advertising: A Novel and Integrated Approach.

Display and native ads represent two of the most widely used digital advertising formats employed by advertisers that aim to grab the attention of online users. In recent years, the native format has become very popular because it relies on deceptive features that make harder the recognition of its advertising nature, reducing avoiding behaviors such as the banner blindness phenomena, traditionally associated to display advertising, and so increasing its advertising effectiveness. The present study, based on a forefront research protocol specifically designed for the advertising research on smartphone devices, aims to investigate through neurophysiological and self-reported measures, the perception of display and native ads placed within article webpages, and to assess the efficacy of an integrated approach. Eye-tracking results showed higher visual attention and longer viewing time associated with native advertisements in comparison to traditional display advertisements, confirming and extending evidence provided by previous research. Despite a significantly higher rate of self-reported advertising intent was detected for articles containing display ads when compared to articles containing native ads, no differences have been found while performing the same comparison for the neurophysiological measures of emotional involvement and approaching motivation of for the self-reported measures of pleasantness and annoyance. Such findings along with the employment of an innovative research protocol, contribute to providing further cues to the current debate related to the effectiveness of two of the most widely used digital advertising formats.

Smoke signals: A study of the neurophysiological reaction of smokers and non-smokers to smoking cues inserted into antismoking public service announcements.

Tobacco addiction is one of the biggest health emergencies in the world, Antismoking Public Service Announcements (PSAs) represent the main public tool against smoking; however, smoking-related cues (SCs) often included in PSAs can trigger ambiguous cerebral reactions that could impact the persuasiveness and efficacy of the antismoking message. This study aimed to investigate the electroencephalographic (EEG) response in adult smokers and non-smokers during the exposure to SCs presented in antismoking PSAs video, in order to identify eventual neurophysiological features of SCs' 'boomerang effect' elicited in smokers. EEG frontal Alpha asymmetry and frontal Theta were analyzed in 92 adults (30 no smokers, 31 low smokers, 31 high smokers) from EEG recorded during the vision of 3 antismoking PSAs, statistical analysis was conducted using ANOVA. Main results showed a significant interaction between smoking cue condition (Pre and Post) and smoking habit (in particular for female heavy smokers) for the frontal Alpha asymmetry. Since the relative higher right frontal Alpha activity is associated with approach towards a stimulus, it is suggested that the relative left frontal Alpha increase in response to SCs might reflect an appetitive approach in response to it. In the light of the Incentive Sensitization Theory, this pattern can be interpreted as a neurophysiological signal in response to SCs that could undermine the message's effectiveness contributing to the maintenance of the addiction.

Neurophysiological Verbal Working Memory Patterns in Children: Searching for a Benchmark of Modality Differences in Audio/Video Stimuli Processing.

Exploration of specific brain areas involved in verbal working memory (VWM) is a powerful but not widely used tool for the study of different sensory modalities, especially in children. In this study, for the first time, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate neurophysiological similarities and differences in response to the same verbal stimuli, expressed in the auditory and visual modality during the n-back task with varying memory load in children. Since VWM plays an important role in learning ability, we wanted to investigate whether children elaborated the verbal input from auditory and visual stimuli through the same neural patterns and if performance varies depending on the sensory modality. Performance in terms of reaction times was better in visual than auditory modality (p = 0.008) and worse as memory load increased regardless of the modality (p < 0.001). EEG activation was proportionally influenced by task level and was evidenced in theta band over the prefrontal cortex (p = 0.021), along the midline (p = 0.003), and on the left hemisphere (p = 0.003). Differences in the effects of the two modalities were seen only in gamma band in the parietal cortices (p = 0.009). The values of a brainwave-based engagement index, innovatively used here to test children in a dual-modality VWM paradigm, varied depending on n-back task level (p = 0.001) and negatively correlated (p = 0.002) with performance, suggesting its computational effectiveness in detecting changes in mental state during memory tasks involving children. Overall, our findings suggest that auditory and visual VWM involved the same brain cortical areas (frontal, parietal, occipital, and midline) and that the significant differences in cortical activation in theta band were more related to memory load than sensory modality, suggesting that VWM function in the child's brain involves a cross-modal processing pattern.

Forefront Users' Experience Evaluation by Employing Together Virtual Reality and Electroencephalography: A Case Study on Cognitive Effects of Scents.

Scents have the ability to affect peoples' mental states and task performance with to different extents. It has been widely demonstrated that the lemon scent, included in most all-purpose cleaners, elicits stimulation and activation, while the lavender scent elicits relaxation and sedative effects. The present study aimed at investigating and fostering a novel approach to evaluate users' experience with respect to scents' effects through the joint employment of Virtual Reality and users' neurophysiological monitoring, in particular Electroencephalography. In particular, this study, involving 42 participants, aimed to compare the effects of lemon and lavender scents on the deployment of cognitive resources during a daily life experience consisting in a train journey carried out in virtual reality. Our findings showed a significant higher request of cognitive resources during the processing of an informative message for subjects exposed to the lavender scent with respect to the lemon exposure. No differences were found between lemon and lavender conditions on the self-reported items of pleasantness and involvement; as this study demonstrated, the employment of the lavender scent preserves the quality of the customer experience to the same extent as the more widely used lemon scent.

Higher Right Hemisphere Gamma Band Lateralization and Suggestion of a Sensitive Period for Vocal Auditory Emotional Stimuli Recognition in Unilateral Cochlear Implant Children: An EEG Study.

In deaf children, huge emphasis was given to language; however, emotional cues decoding and production appear of pivotal importance for communication capabilities. Concerning neurophysiological correlates of emotional processing, the gamma band activity appears a useful tool adopted for emotion classification and related to the conscious elaboration of emotions. Starting from these considerations, the following items have been investigated: (i) whether emotional auditory stimuli processing differs between normal-hearing (NH) children and children using a cochlear implant (CI), given the non-physiological development of the auditory system in the latter group; (ii) whether the age at CI surgery influences emotion recognition capabilities; and (iii) in light of the right hemisphere hypothesis for emotional processing, whether the CI side influences the processing of emotional cues in unilateral CI (UCI) children. To answer these matters, 9 UCI (9.47 ± 2.33 years old) and 10 NH (10.95 ± 2.11 years old) children were asked to recognize nonverbal vocalizations belonging to three emotional states: positive (achievement, amusement, contentment, relief), negative (anger, disgust, fear, sadness), and neutral (neutral, surprise). Results showed better performances in NH than UCI children in emotional states recognition. The UCI group showed increased gamma activity lateralization index (LI) (relative higher right hemisphere activity) in comparison to the NH group in response to emotional auditory cues. Moreover, LI gamma values were negatively correlated with the percentage of correct responses in emotion recognition. Such observations could be explained by a deficit in UCI children in engaging the left hemisphere for more demanding emotional task, or alternatively by a higher conscious elaboration in UCI than NH children. Additionally, for the UCI group, there was no difference between the CI side and the contralateral side in gamma activity, but a higher gamma activity in the right in comparison to the left hemisphere was found. Therefore, the CI side did not appear to influence the physiologic hemispheric lateralization of emotional processing. Finally, a negative correlation was shown between the age at the CI surgery and the percentage of correct responses in emotion recognition and then suggesting the occurrence of a sensitive period for CI surgery for best emotion recognition skills development.

NeuroDante: Poetry Mentally Engages More Experts but Moves More Non-Experts, and for Both the Cerebral Approach Tendency Goes Hand in Hand with the Cerebral Effort.

Neuroaesthetics, the science studying the biological underpinnings of aesthetic experience, recently extended its area of investigation to literary art; this was the humus where neurocognitive poetics blossomed. Divina Commedia represents one of the most important, famous and studied poems worldwide. Poetry stimuli are characterized by elements (meter and rhyme) promoting the processing fluency, a core aspect of neuroaesthetics theories. In addition, given the evidence of different neurophysiological reactions between experts and non-experts in response to artistic stimuli, the aim of the present study was to investigate, in poetry, a different neurophysiological cognitive and emotional reaction between Literature (L) and Non-Literature (NL) students. A further aim was to investigate whether neurophysiological underpinnings would support explanation of behavioral data. Investigation methods employed: self-report assessments (recognition, appreciation, content recall) and neurophysiological indexes (approach/withdrawal (AW), cerebral effort (CE) and galvanic skin response (GSR)). The main behavioral results, according to fluency theories in aesthetics, suggested in the NL but not in the L group that the appreciation/liking went hand by hand with the self-declared recognition and with the content recall. The main neurophysiological results were: (i) higher galvanic skin response in NL, whilst higher CE values in L; (ii) a positive correlation between AW and CE indexes in both groups. The present results extended previous evidence relative to figurative art also to auditory poetry stimuli, suggesting an emotional attenuation "expertise-specific" showed by experts, but increased cognitive processing in response to the stimuli.

Antismoking Campaigns' Perception and Gender Differences: A Comparison among EEG Indices.

Human factors' aim is to understand and evaluate the interactions between people and tasks, technologies, and environment. Among human factors, it is possible then to include the subjective reaction to external stimuli, due to individual's characteristics and states of mind. These processes are also involved in the perception of antismoking public service announcements (PSAs), the main tool for governments to contrast the first cause of preventable deaths in the world: tobacco addiction. In the light of that, in the present article, it has been investigated through the comparison of different electroencephalographic (EEG) indices a typical item known to be able of influencing PSA perception, that is gender. In order to investigate the neurophysiological underpinnings of such different perception, we tested two PSAs: one with a female character and one with a male character. Furthermore, the experimental sample was divided into men and women, as well as smokers and nonsmokers. The employed EEG indices were the mental engagement (ME: the ratio between beta activity and the sum of alpha and theta activity); the approach/withdrawal (AW: the frontal alpha asymmetry in the alpha band); and the frontal theta activity and the spectral asymmetry index (SASI: the ratio between beta minus theta and beta plus theta). Results suggested that the ME and the AW presented an opposite trend, with smokers showing higher ME and lower AW than nonsmokers. The ME and the frontal theta also evidenced a statistically significant interaction between the kind of the PSA and the gender of the observers; specifically, women showed higher ME and frontal theta activity for the male character PSA. This study then supports the usefulness of the ME and frontal theta for purposes of PSAs targeting on the basis of gender issues and of the ME and the AW and for purposes of PSAs targeting on the basis of smoking habits.

Consumer Behaviour through the Eyes of Neurophysiological Measures: State-of-the-Art and Future Trends.

The new technological advances achieved during the last decade allowed the scientific community to investigate and employ neurophysiological measures not only for research purposes but also for the study of human behaviour in real and daily life situations. The aim of this review is to understand how and whether neuroscientific technologies can be effectively employed to better understand the human behaviour in real decision-making contexts. To do so, firstly, we will describe the historical development of neuromarketing and its main applications in assessing the sensory perceptions of some marketing and advertising stimuli. Then, we will describe the main neuroscientific tools available for such kind of investigations (e.g., measuring the cerebral electrical or hemodynamic activity, the eye movements, and the psychometric responses). Also, this review will present different brain measurement techniques, along with their pros and cons, and the main cerebral indexes linked to the specific mental states of interest (used in most of the neuromarketing research). Such indexes have been supported by adequate validations from the scientific community and are largely employed in neuromarketing research. This review will also discuss a series of papers that present different neuromarketing applications, such us in-store choices and retail, services, pricing, brand perception, web usability, neuropolitics, evaluation of the food and wine taste, and aesthetic perception of artworks. Furthermore, this work will face the ethical issues arisen on the use of these tools for the evaluation of the human behaviour during decision-making tasks. In conclusion, the main challenges that neuromarketing is going to face, as well as future directions and possible scenarios that could be derived by the use of neuroscience in the marketing field, will be identified and discussed.