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We develop a Bayesian approach for modeling brain activation and connectivity from functional magnetic resonance image (fMRI) data. Our approach simultaneously estimates local hemodynamic response functions (HRFs) and activation parameters, as well as global effective and functional connectivity parameters. Existing methods assume identical HRFs across brain regions, which may lead to erroneous conclusions in inferring activation and connectivity patterns. Our approach addresses this limitation by estimating region-specific HRFs. Additionally, it enables neuroscientists to compare effective connectivity networks for different experimental conditions. Furthermore, the use of spike and slab priors on the connectivity parameters allows us to directly select significant effective connectivities in a given network.

We include a simulation study that demonstrates that, compared to the standard generalized linear model (GLM) approach, our model generally has higher power and lower type I error and bias than the GLM approach, and it also has the ability to capture condition-specific connectivities. We applied our approach to a dataset from a stroke study and found different effective connectivity patterns for task and rest conditions in certain brain regions of interest (ROIs).

The purpose of this paper is to review recent applications of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other neuroimaging techniques in marketing and advertising, and to present some methodological and statistical considerations that should be taken into consideration when applying fMRI to study consumers’ cognitive behavior related to marketing phenomena.

A critical approach to investigate three methodological issues related to fMRI applications in marketing is adopted. These issues deal mainly with brain activation regions, event-related fMRI and signal-to-noise ratio. Statistical issues related to fMRI data pre-processing, analyzing and reporting are also investigated.

Neuroimaging cognitive techniques have great potential in marketing and advertising. This is because, unlike conventional marketing research methods, neuroimaging data are much less susceptible to social desirability and “interviewer’s” effect. Thus, it is expected that using neuroimaging methods to investigate which areas in a consumer’s brain are activated in response to a specific marketing stimulus can provide a much more honest indicator of their cognition compared to traditional marketing research tools such as focus groups and questionnaires.

By merging disparate fields, such as marketing, neuroscience and cognitive psychology, this research presents a comprehensive critical review of how neuroscientific methods can be used to test existing marketing theories.

This chapter seeks to investigate the ways individualistic versus collectivistic values moderate neural responses to social exclusion among African American and White respondents. The author hypothesized that the vmPFC – a key brain region for emotion regulation – would correspond to collectivistic value moderation and the dlPFC – the cognitive control center of the brain – would be associated with individualistic value moderation.

This study used a virtual ball tossing game (Cyberball), where 17 African American and 11 White participants were excluded or included with ball tosses, while inside an fMRI scanner. Before the start of each round the participants were primed with individualism, collectivism or a comparison condition.

Results showed that (1) African Americans showed stronger neural responses to exclusion and (2) offered support for the hypothesis that the dlPFC showed greater activation in African Americans (compared to Whites) when they were primed with individualism values during exclusion. There was no support for the collectivism hypothesis.

Research limitations included a relatively small sample size (N = 28), a comparison of only two racial groups and that the partners in the game were virtual (pre-programmed by the experimenter).

This research offers an empirical framework for sociologists seeking to apply social theories into neurological studies.

Identifying effective coping strategies for historically oppressed racial groups.

The chapter is original for demonstrating the moderating effects of values on neural responses to exclusion for the first time and by offering a novel neurosociological framework.

This study is the first to examine consumer’s neural reaction to different merchandising communication strategies at the point-of-sale (PoS) by applying functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). By doing so, the purpose of this study is to extend consumer neuroscience to retail and shopper research.

Two experiments were conducted in which 36 shoppers were exposed to a realistic grocery shopping scenario while their brain haemodynamics were measured using mobile fNIRS.

Results revealed that mobile fNIRS appears a valid method to study neural activation of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in the field of “shopper neuroscience”. More precisely, results demonstrated that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) might be crucial for processing and predicting merchandising communication strategy effectiveness.

This research gives evidence that certain regions of the PFC, in particular the OFC and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC), are crucial to process and evaluate merchandising communication strategies.

The current work opens a promising new avenue for studying and understanding shopper’s behaviour. Mobile fNIRS enables marketing management to collect neural data from shoppers and analyse neural activity associated with real-life settings. Furthermore, based on a better understanding of shoppers’ perceptual processes of communication strategies, marketers can design more effective merchandising communication strategies.

The study is the first to implement the innovative, mobile neuroimaging method of fNIRS to a PoS setting. It, therefore, opens up the promising field of “shopper neuroscience”.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the methodology of several brain imaging techniques and in particular, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and its potential implications for market research. The aim is to enable the reader both to understand this emerging methodology and to conduct independent research in the area.

A short introduction on current neuroimaging methods used in behavioral neuroscience is provided by means of a literature review. The ensuing discussion focuses on fMRI as the currently most popular neuroimaging technique. Having described the fMRI methodology, an outline of the analysis of functional neuroimaging data follows, after which there is a discussion of some key research issues.

Although in its infancy, fMRI seems to be a useful and promising tool for market researchers. Initial studies in the field reveal that fMRI is able to shed light on subconscious processes such as affective aspects of consumer behavior.

Because brand positioning, advertising strategies and even pricing strategies are often based on constructs such as emotions, neuropsychological findings and methods should have important implications for practitioners in the field of brand management and advertising. Nonetheless, far more basic research is needed before fMRI can be adopted for marketing practice.

This paper is one of the first in the marketing literature to provide a methodological overview of fMRI and discuss the potential implications for marketing research.

To advance marketing research and practice, this study aims to examine the application of the innovative, mobile-applicable neuroimaging method – mobile functional near-infrared spectroscopy (mfNIRS) – in the field of marketing research, providing comprehensive guidelines and practical recommendations.

A general review and investigation of when and how to use mfNIRS in business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing settings is used to illustrate the utility of mfNIRS.

The research findings help prospective marketing and consumer neuroscience researchers to structure mfNIRS experiments, perform the analysis and interpret the obtained mfNIRS data.

The application of mfNIRS offers opportunities for marketing research that allow the exploration of neural processes and associated behaviour of customers in naturalistic settings.

The application of mfNIRS as a neuroimaging method enables the investigation of unconscious neural processes that control customer behaviour and can act as process variables for companies.

This is one of the first studies to provide comprehensive guidelines and applied practical recommendations concerning when and how to apply mfNIRS in marketing research.

The purpose of this study is to examine how consumer personality trait impulsiveness influences trustworthiness evaluations of online-offers with different trust-assuring and trust-reducing elements by measuring the brain activity of consumers. Shoppers with high degrees of impulsiveness are referred to as hedonic shoppers, and those with low degrees are referred to as prudent consumers.

To investigate the differences between neural processes in the brains of hedonic and prudent shoppers during the trustworthiness evaluation of online-offers, the present study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and region-of-interest analysis to correlate neural activity patterns with behavioral measures of the study participants.

Drawing upon literature reviews on the neural correlates of both trust in online settings and consumer impulsiveness and using an experimental design that links behavioral and fMRI data, the study shows that consumer impulsiveness can exert a significant influence on the evaluation of online-offers. With regard to brain activation, both groups (hedonic and prudent shoppers) exhibit similar neural activation tendencies, but differences exist in the magnitude of activation patterns in brain regions that are closely related to trust and impulsiveness such as the dorsal striatum, anterior cingulate, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and the insula cortex.

The data provide evidence that consumers within the hedonic group evaluate online-offers differently with regard to their trustworthiness compared to the prudent group, and that these differences in evaluation are rooted in neural activation differences in the shoppers’ brains.

Marketers need to be made aware of the fact that neurological insights can be used for market segmentation, because consumers’ decision-making processes help explain behavioral outcomes (here, trustworthiness evaluations of online-offers). In addition, consumers can learn from an advanced understanding of their brain functions during decision-making and their relation to personal traits such as impulsiveness.

Considering the importance of trust in online shopping, as well as the fact that personality traits such as impulsiveness influence the purchase process to a high degree, this study is the first to systematically investigate the interplay of online trustworthiness perceptions and differences in consumer impulsiveness with neuroscientific methods.

Major cardiotonics are now widely used in reviving patients and we are concerned with shock following cardiac surgery. It is, however, difficult to use the most efficient of them, e.g. isoprenalin, with required accuracy regarding its effects. We describe a model which simulates the haemodynamic response to variable doses of cardiotonics. Firstly, one has to identify the parameters of this model and to test it on experimental data. Then one has to use the resulting model in the frame of optimal control of time‐dependent systems in order to determine some doses nearest the optimum.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the auditory-sensory characteristics of the digital pop music that is particularly successful on the YouTube website by measuring young listeners’ brain responses to highly successful pop music noninvasively.

The authors conducted a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) experiment with 56 young adults (23 females; mean age 24 years) with normal vision and hearing and no record of neurological disease. The authors calculated total blood flow (TBF) and hemodynamic randomness and examined their relationships with online popularity.

The authors found that TBF to the right medial prefrontal cortex increased more when the young adults heard music that presented acoustic stimulation well above previously defined optimal sensory level. The hemodynamic randomness decreased significantly when the participants listened to music that provided near- or above-OSL stimulation.

Online popularity, recorded as the number of daily hits, was significantly positively related with the TBF and negatively related with hemodynamic randomness.

These findings suggest that a new media marketing strategy may be required that can provide a sufficient level of sensory stimulation to Millennials in order to increase their engagements in various use cases including entertainment, advertising and retail environments.

Digital technology has so drastically reduced the costs of sharing and disseminating information, including music, that consumers can now easily use digital platforms to access a wide selection of music at minimal cost. The structure of the current music market reflects the decentralized nature of the online distribution network such that artists from all over the world now have equal access to billions of members of the global music audience.

This study confirms the importance of understanding target customer’s sensory experiences would grow in determining the success of digital contents and marketing.