LABORATORIES OF EXPERIENCES

Scientific
publications

Scientific publications and articles are the result of our research activities in the fields of psychology and applied neuroscience concerning widely diverse cases of human experience. Many areas of our research are linked to or inspired by the world of marketing, which is often referred to as “neuromarketing”, but we believe this term to be inadequate. People do not buy products, but rather they live experiences, both during the purchase process and the fruition of the product or service they have chosen. This awareness, gained over the years, is the engine that drives us to want to understand every aspect of those experiences in order to improve them for the people who live them. We do this through the projects we follow for our clients, but even more so through a scientific methodology that substantiates results for the entire scientific community.

Our researchers, certified psychologists, neuroscientists, and engineers, have skills that also relate to humanistic fields, such as anthropology and sociology, as well as mathematical fields, such as statistics and data analysis. Their scientific publications are therefore the result of their dedication and passion, of the combination of knowledge derived from our mixed-methods approach and of the collaboration between TSW and accredited institutes such as universities and research centres.

We have therefore gathered the scientific papers of our researchers, written in collaboration with other sector professionals, and the most significant examples of our research activities here on this page.

15 JAN 2020

Measuring the Effects of Video Advertising on Brand Associations

Authors: C Caldato, S Benedetto, F Checchinato
Journal: Micro & Macro Marketing

This paper investigates the effects of video advertising in eliciting short-term changes in the strength of brand associations in both the target brand and the main competing brand. Using the «response latency task» defined by Till et al.(2011), the authors compared the strength of the associations related to a target brand and its main competitor before and after eighty participants viewed a video advertising the target brand. Findings suggest that advertising can reinforce brand associations of the target brand, enhancing their strength. Simultaneously, the same advertising also affects the competitor’s brand associations, but the effect is smaller.

22 NOV 2019

Remote heart rate monitoring-Assessment of the Facereader rPPg by Noldus

Authors: S Benedetto, C Caldato, DC Greenwood, N Bartoli, V Pensabene, P Actis
Journal: Plos ONE

Remote photoplethysmography (rPPG) allows contactless monitoring of human cardiac activity through a video camera. In this study, we assessed the accuracy and precision for heart rate measurements of the only consumer product available on the market, namely the FacereaderTM rPPG by Noldus, with respect to a gold standard electrocardiograph. Twenty-four healthy participants were asked to sit in front of a computer screen and alternate two periods of rest with two stress tests (i.e. Go/No-Go task), while their heart rate was simultaneously acquired for 20 minutes using the ECG criterion measure and the FacereaderTM rPPG. Results show that the FacereaderTM rPPG tends to overestimate lower heart rates and underestimate higher heart rates compared to the ECG. The Facereader™ rPPG revealed a mean bias of 9.8 bpm, the 95% limits of agreement (LoA) ranged from almost -30 up to +50 bpm. These results suggest that whilst the rPPG FacereaderTM technology has potential for contactless heart rate monitoring, its predictions are inaccurate for higher heart rates, with unacceptable precision across the entire range, rendering its estimates unreliable for monitoring individuals.

10 JUN 2018

Emotional impact played by art experience measured by means of neuroscientific techniques and traditional interviews

Authors: C Caldato, S Benedetto, E Bazzan, L Rodighiero, M Mauri
Journal: Proceedings of the Measuring Behavior 2018 Conference

Neuroaesthetics is a recent research area in cognitive neuroscience. This area focuses the attention on the aesthetic experience about beauty, in particular about visual art. Neuroscientific studies showed how the use of brain imaging techniques such as functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG) and electroencephalography (EEG) can be efficiently applied to study the impact of this kind of experience. Although the scientific debate about explanations and understanding of brain systems involved in aesthetic experience elicited by visual artworks is still open, results show how the possibility to investigate this experience by means of neuroscientific methods is a promising field. In this framework, this research study presents additional empirical evidence supporting the possibility to further developing the application of neuroscientific techniques based on EEG synchronized with portable eye-tracking and galvanic skin responses while subjects are exposed to paintings “in vivo”, inside the museum where the paintings are exposed. Preliminary results confirm how portable solutions allow to measure aesthetics experience by means of neuroscientific methods combined with traditional ones based on interviews. The present research project is granted by “Banca Intesa San Paolo” from Italy.

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