What Is behind In-Stream Advertising on YouTube? A Remote Neuromarketing Study employing Eye-Tracking and Facial Coding techniques.

Not all elements displayed in a YouTube in-stream video ad are attributable to the ad itself. Some of those are automatically introduced by the platform, such as the countdown timer and the time progress bar. In recent years, some authors started exploring the effects associated with the presence of such non-ad items, providing valuable findings. However, objective evaluation of viewers' visual attention is lacking in this context as well as emotional investigation. In addition, previous research showed how the manipulation of seemingly negligible details can yield dramatically different outcomes in the context of in-stream advertising. To extend knowledge, the authors explored the effects of the non-ad items' presence by employing eye-tracking and facial coding techniques in combination with self-reports in a between-subjects experimental design focusing on the YouTube 15-s, mid-roll, non-skippable in-stream ad format. Results showed that the ad format currently employed by YouTube performs worse than its equivalent without the non-ad items on all the investigated measures and than its equivalent in which the non-ad items' presence was experimentally reduced on facial coding disgust, self-reported disgust, ad irritation, and ad attitude. Managerial insights and challenges concerning the future of in-stream advertising and neuromarketing are highlighted.

The Sample Size Matters: To What Extent the Participant Reduction Affects the Outcomes of a Neuroscientific Research. A Case-Study in Neuromarketing Field.

The sample size is a crucial concern in scientific research and even more in behavioural neurosciences, where besides the best practice it is not always possible to reach large experimental samples. In this study we investigated how the outcomes of research change in response to sample size reduction. Three indices computed during a task involving the observations of four videos were considered in the analysis, two related to the brain electroencephalographic (EEG) activity and one to autonomic physiological measures, i.e., heart rate and skin conductance. The modifications of these indices were investigated considering five subgroups of sample size (32, 28, 24, 20, 16), each subgroup consisting of 630 different combinations made by bootstrapping n (n = sample size) out of 36 subjects, with respect to the total population (i.e., 36 subjects). The correlation analysis, the mean squared error (MSE), and the standard deviation (STD) of the indexes were studied at the participant reduction and three factors of influence were considered in the analysis: the type of index, the task, and its duration (time length). The findings showed a significant decrease of the correlation associated to the participant reduction as well as a significant increase of MSE and STD (p < 0.05). A threshold of subjects for which the outcomes remained significant and comparable was pointed out. The effects were to some extents sensitive to all the investigated variables, but the main effect was due to the task length. Therefore, the minimum threshold of subjects for which the outcomes were comparable increased at the reduction of the spot duration.

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.

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.

Stress Assessment by Combining Neurophysiological Signals and Radio Communications of Air Traffic Controllers.

Air Traffic Control (ATC) has been classified as the fourth most stressful job. In this regard, sixteen controllers were asked to perform ecological ATC simulation during which behavioral (Radio Communications with pilots - RCs), subjective (stress perception) and neurophysiological signals (brain activity and skin conductance - SC) were collected. All the considered parameters reported significant changes under high stress conditions. In particular, the theta, alpha, and beta brain rhythms increased significantly (all p<0.05) all over the brain areas, and both the SC components exhibited higher values (p<0.01). Additionally, the number of speech under high stress decreased significantly (p<10-4) while both the mean and median value of the F0 component of the RC increased (p<0.01). The results can be employed to objectively measure and track the controller's stress level while dealing with ATC activities to better tailoring the workshift and maintaining high safety levels.

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.

Neurophysiological Profile of Antismoking Campaigns.

Over the past few decades, antismoking public service announcements (PSAs) have been used by governments to promote healthy behaviours in citizens, for instance, against drinking before the drive and against smoke. Effectiveness of such PSAs has been suggested especially for young persons. By now, PSAs efficacy is still mainly assessed through traditional methods (questionnaires and metrics) and could be performed only after the PSAs broadcasting, leading to waste of economic resources and time in the case of Ineffective PSAs. One possible countermeasure to such ineffective use of PSAs could be promoted by the evaluation of the cerebral reaction to the PSA of particular segments of population (e.g., old, young, and heavy smokers). In addition, it is crucial to gather such cerebral activity in front of PSAs that have been assessed to be effective against smoke (Effective PSAs), comparing results to the cerebral reactions to PSAs that have been certified to be not effective (Ineffective PSAs). The eventual differences between the cerebral responses toward the two PSA groups will provide crucial information about the possible outcome of new PSAs before to its broadcasting. This study focused on adult population, by investigating the cerebral reaction to the vision of different PSA images, which have already been shown to be Effective and Ineffective for the promotion of an antismoking behaviour. Results showed how variables as gender and smoking habits can influence the perception of PSA images, and how different communication styles of the antismoking campaigns could facilitate the comprehension of PSA's message and then enhance the related impact.

Neurophysiological Measures of the Perception of Antismoking Public Service Announcements Among Young Population.

Tobacco constitutes a global emergency with totally preventable millions of deaths per year and smoking-related illnesses. Public service announcements (PSAs) are the main tool against smoking and by now their efficacy is still assessed through questionnaires and metrics, only months after their circulation. The present study focused on the young population, because at higher risk of developing tobacco addiction, investigating the reaction to the vision of Effective, Ineffective and Awarded antismoking PSAs through: electroencephalography (EEG), autonomic activity variation (Galvanic skin response-GSR- and Heart Rate-HR-) and Eye-Tracking (ET). The employed indices were: the EEG frontal alpha band asymmetry and the frontal theta; the Emotional Index (EI), deriving from the GSR and HR signals matching; the ET Visual Attention (VA) index, based on the ratio between the total time spent fixating an area of interest (AOI) and its area. Smokers expressed higher frontal alpha asymmetry values in comparison to non-smokers. Concerning frontal theta, Awarded PSAs reported the highest values in comparison to both Effective and Ineffective PSAs. EI results highlighted that lowest values were expressed by Heavy Smokers (HS), and Effective PSAs obtained the highest EI values. Finally, concerning the Effective PSAs, regression analysis highlighted a correlation between the number of cigarettes smoked by participants (independent variable) and frontal alpha asymmetry, frontal theta and EI values. ET results suggested that for the Ineffective PSAs the main focus were texts, while for the Effective and Awarded PSAs were the visual elements. Results support the use of methods aimed at assessing the physiological reaction for the evaluation of PSAs images, in particular when considering the smoking habits of target populations.

An eye tracking index for the salience estimation in visual stimuli.

Every day we face visual stimuli able to catch our attention, but this aspect becomes crucial if the visual material has the purpose to spread a message aimed at engaging the observer. In this framework, a worthy aspect is how to measure the "visual engagement" produced by visual stimuli exposure. To this purpose, in the present study, employing the eye tracking technique, an index of visual attention (VA) has been proposed, and applied to pictures belonging to antismoking public service announcements, so to investigate the saliency of health-promoting messages in a young sample. The VA index is a non-dimensional index, defined as the ratio between the percentage of the total time spent fixating an area of interest (AOI) weighted on the total time the picture is showed on the screen, and the percentage of the area occupied by the AOI weighted on the total dimension of the picture. It could be predicted that AOI reporting higher VA values will be the ones having more saliency. Three antismoking Public Service Announcements (PSAs) images have been selected for the study and for each of them were identified: i) "picture" (such as a young man with a sarcastic expression depicted while smoking a cigarette, or the image of a lady who underwent a tracheotomy) and ii) "writing" (text of the antismoking message) AOIs. Main results of the analysis revealed that writing AOIs obtained statistically significant higher VA values than visual AOIs (p=0.03), but these held true only for an ineffective PSA, probably because the text was not perceived as pertinent with the surrounding image. On the other hand, an effective PSA obtained higher VA values in response to visual than writing AOIs observation (p=0.02). The VA index appears therefore to represent a useful tool to measure the saliency of visual stimuli elements.

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.

Neurophysiological measures for users' training objective assessment during simulated robot-assisted laparoscopic surgery.

Minimally invasive surgery can be performed with robotic assistance, as evolution of laparoscopic surgery. Robots for assisted surgery are far from being user friendly and require extensive training. To this end, ad-hoc devices and experimental set-ups are needed. The da Vinci system is one of the most diffused surgical robotics technology. The aim of the study was two-fold: i) to propose a neurophysiological measure by which objectively assess the learning progress of the users by means of a simulator of the da Vinci system, and ii) to demonstrate the advantages of cognitive assessment with respect to the standard methodologies for the evaluation of training efficiency.

A pilot study on the neurometric evaluation of "effective" and "ineffective" antismoking public service announcements.

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and smoking-related illness worldwide. Research has shown that antismoking advertising may help reduce this habit. Nowadays, public service announcements (PSAs) are considered "Effective" or "Ineffective" on the base of official reports concerning behavioral/attitudinal changes toward healthier patterns and health-related savings following the exposure to the PSA. In this pilot study, we described the results of the use of three neurometric indexes for the evaluation of the efficacy of a couple of antismoking PSAs in a reduced sample of voluntary participants. The study applied the gathering of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythms variations, as well as the heart rate (HR) and galvanic skin response (GSR). The neurometric indicators here employed were the Approach-Withdrawal (AW), the Effort (EfI) and the Emotional (EI) indexes. Results suggest a significant higher values for AW, Effort and Emotional indexes (p=0,02; p= 0,03 and p= 0,01 respectively) related to the perception of the "Effective" antismoking PSAs against the perception of the "Ineffective" one. Since this is a pilot study, the results obtained need further investigation, in terms of enlarged stimuli sample and number of participants to provide indications concerning the relevant features to be included in the realization of effective anti-smoking PSAs.

Neurophysiological tools to investigate consumer's gender differences during the observation of TV commercials.

Neuromarketing is a multidisciplinary field of research whose aim is to investigate the consumers' reaction to advertisements from a neuroscientific perspective. In particular, the neuroscience field is thought to be able to reveal information about consumer preferences which are unobtainable through conventional methods, including submitting questionnaires to large samples of consumers or performing psychological personal or group interviews. In this scenario, we performed an experiment in order to investigate cognitive and emotional changes of cerebral activity evaluated by neurophysiologic indices during the observation of TV commercials. In particular, we recorded the electroencephalographic (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR), and heart rate (HR) in a group of 28 healthy subjects during the observation of a series of TV advertisements that have been grouped by commercial categories. Comparisons of cerebral indices have been performed to highlight gender differences between commercial categories and scenes of interest of two specific commercials. Findings show how EEG methodologies, along with the measurements of autonomic variables, could be used to obtain hidden information to marketers not obtainable otherwise. Most importantly, it was suggested how these tools could help to analyse the perception of TV advertisements and differentiate their production according to the consumer's gender.

Electronic evaluation for video commercials by impression index.

How to evaluate the effect of commercials is significantly important in neuromarketing. In this paper, we proposed an electronic way to evaluate the influence of video commercials on consumers by impression index. The impression index combines both the memorization and attention index during consumers observing video commercials by tracking the EEG activity. It extracts features from scalp EEG to evaluate the effectiveness of video commercials in terms of time-frequency-space domain. And, the general global field power was used as an impression index for evaluation of video commercial scenes as time series. Results of experiment demonstrate that the proposed approach is able to track variations of the cerebral activity related to cognitive task such as observing video commercials, and help to judge whether the scene in video commercials is impressive or not by EEG signals.

Consumer nueroscience: a new area of study for biomedical engineers.

In scientific literature, the most accepted definition of consumer neuroscience or neuromarketing is that it is a field of study concerning the application of neuroscience methods to analyze and understand human behavior related to markets and marketing exchanges. First, it might seem strange that marketers would be interested in using neuroscience to understand consumer's preferences. Yet in practice, the basic goal of marketers is to guide the design and presentation of products in such a way that they are highly compatible with consumer preferences. To understand consumers preferences, several standard research tools are commonly used by marketers, such as personal interviews with the consumers, scoring questionnaries gathered from consumers, and focus groups. The reason marketing researchers are interested in using brain imaging tools instead of simply asking people for their preferences in front of marketing stimuli, arises from the assumption that people cannot (or do not want to) fully explain their preference when explicitly asked. Researchers in the field hypothesize that neuroimaging tools can access information within the consumer's brain during the generation of a preference or the observation of a commercial advertisement. The question of will this information be useful in further promoting the product is still up for debate in marketing literature. From the marketing researchers point of view, there is a hope that this body of brain imaging techniques will provide an efficient tradeoff between costs and benefits of the research. Currently, neuroscience methodology includes powerful brain imaging tools based on the gathering of hemodynamic or electromagnetic signals related to the human brain activity during the performance of a relevant task for marketing objectives. These tools are briefly reviewed in this article.

On the use of EEG or MEG brain imaging tools in neuromarketing research.

Here we present an overview of some published papers of interest for the marketing research employing electroencephalogram (EEG) and magnetoencephalogram (MEG) methods. The interest for these methodologies relies in their high-temporal resolution as opposed to the investigation of such problem with the functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) methodology, also largely used in the marketing research. In addition, EEG and MEG technologies have greatly improved their spatial resolution in the last decades with the introduction of advanced signal processing methodologies. By presenting data gathered through MEG and high resolution EEG we will show which kind of information it is possible to gather with these methodologies while the persons are watching marketing relevant stimuli. Such information will be related to the memorization and pleasantness related to such stimuli. We noted that temporal and frequency patterns of brain signals are able to provide possible descriptors conveying information about the cognitive and emotional processes in subjects observing commercial advertisements. These information could be unobtainable through common tools used in standard marketing research. We also show an example of how an EEG methodology could be used to analyze cultural differences between fruition of video commercials of carbonated beverages in Western and Eastern countries.

EEG analysis of the brain activity during the observation of commercial, political, or public service announcements.

The use of modern brain imaging techniques could be useful to understand what brain areas are involved in the observation of video clips related to commercial advertising, as well as for the support of political campaigns, and also the areas of Public Service Announcements (PSAs). In this paper we describe the capability of tracking brain activity during the observation of commercials, political spots, and PSAs with advanced high-resolution EEG statistical techniques in time and frequency domains in a group of normal subjects. We analyzed the statistically significant cortical spectral power activity in different frequency bands during the observation of a commercial video clip related to the use of a beer in a group of 13 normal subjects. In addition, a TV speech of the Prime Minister of Italy was analyzed in two groups of swing and "supporter" voters. Results suggested that the cortical activity during the observation of commercial spots could vary consistently across the spot. This fact suggest the possibility to remove the parts of the spot that are not particularly attractive by using those cerebral indexes. The cortical activity during the observation of the political speech indicated a major cortical activity in the supporters group when compared to the swing voters. In this case, it is possible to conclude that the communication proposed has failed to raise attention or interest on swing voters. In conclusions, high-resolution EEG statistical techniques have been proved to able to generate useful insights about the particular fruition of TV messages, related to both commercial as well as political fields.

Brain connectivity structure in spinal cord injured: evaluation by graph analysis.

The problem of the evaluation of brain connectivity has become a fundamental one in the neurosciences during the latest years, as a way to understand the organization and the interaction of several cortical areas during the execution of cognitive or motor tasks. Following an approach that derives from the graph theory, we analyzed the architectural properties of the networks obtained by the use of DTF measures on the cortical signals estimated from the high resolution EEG recordings. The present work aims at analyse the structure of cortical connectivity during the imagination of a limb movement in spinal cord injured patients, by the computation of the characteristic path length L and the cluster indices Cin and Cout.

Human alpha rhythms during visual delayed choice reaction time tasks: a magnetoencephalography study.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) includes fast and comfortable recording procedures very suitable for the neurophysiological study of cognitive functions in aged people. In this exploratory MEG study in normal young adults, we tested whether very simple short-term memory (STM) demands induce visible changes in amplitude and latency of surface alpha rhythms. Two delayed response tasks were used. In the STM condition, a simple cue stimulus (one bit) was memorized along a brief delay period (3.5-5.5 s). In the control (no short-term memory; NSTM) condition, the cue stimulus remained available along the delay period. To make extremely simple the tasks, the explicit demand was visuospatial but the retention could be also based on phonological and somatomotor coding. Compared to the control condition, the amplitude of the alpha 1 (6-8 Hz) ERD decreased in the left hemisphere, whereas the amplitude of the alpha 2 (8-10 Hz) and alpha 3 (10-12 Hz) event-related desynchronization (ERD) increased in right and left parietal areas, respectively. Furthermore, the latency of the alpha ERD peak was slightly but significantly (P < 0.05) later in STM compared to control condition. In conclusion, whole-head MEG technology and very simple STM demands revealed significant changes of human neuromagnetic alpha rhythms in normal young adults.