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This paper critiques the scope of neurotechnologies in significantly expanding the epistemological field of tourism and warns of their potential to undermine the cognitive capacity of tourists to act responsibly and responsively.

This study explores the intersections of neurotechnologies and tourism through an analysis that entails a two-step process: firstly, identifying key themes and debates within neurotourism literature; secondly, critically evaluating these discussions through the lenses of social tourism theory and neuroethics.

Firstly, the work questions the potential of neurotechnologies to significantly expand epistemological boundaries concerning a perennial question in tourism studies: namely, the goal pursued by tourists. Secondly, the paper introduces the framework of an ethics of neurotourism, which can aid in developing the ethical research agenda on neurotechnologies applied to tourism. This framework is used to argue that one of the key risks associated with the use of neurotechnologies in tourism is their capacity to encourage non-responsive and non-responsible tourist behaviour.

Both due to the traditional lack of interest in philosophy in tourism and the pro-business orientation of the tourism academy, critical studies on the relationship between neurotechnologies and tourism are limited. The primary contribution of this work is to underscore that the implementation of neurotechnologies in tourism not only has the potential to foster non-responsible behaviour by undermining tourists’ cognitive capacities to act responsibly, but also can diminish their responsiveness. In a neural context where tourists may already exhibit a reduced inclination towards moral engagement, this reduction in responsiveness can be particularly significant.

Extant and newly developing techniques and technologies generated by research in brain sciences are characteristically employed in clinical medicine. However, the increasing capabilities conferred by these approaches to access, assess and affect cognition, emotion and behavior render them viable and attractive for engagement beyond the clinical realm, in what are referred to as “dual-use” applications. Definitions of what constitutes dual-use research and applications can vary so as to include utilization in the public sector for lifestyle or wellness purposes – with growing participation of a do-it-yourself (i.e., biohacking) community, and an iterative interest and use in military and warfare operations. Such uses can pose risks to public safety, and challenge research ethics’ principled imperative for non-harm (although while complete avoidance of any harm may be in reality impossible, certainly any/all harms incurred should be minimized). Thus, it is important to both clarify the construct of dual-use brain research and address the ethical issues that such research fosters. This chapter provides a review and clarification of the concept of dual-use brain science, and describes how current and emerging tools and techniques of brain research are actually or potentially employed in settings that threaten public health and incur ethical concerns. Key ethical issues are addressed, and recommendations for ethical guidance of potentially dual-use research are proposed.

This paper aims to investigate the effectiveness of immersive virtual reality (VR) media and the influence of user’s age in the context of destination marketing by exploring their impact on cognition (presence), affection (arousal), and behavioral (intention to visit and intention to recommend the destination) outcomes.

A laboratory experiment was conducted to compare the impact of using immersive VR (vs. 2D desktop) to experience a 360-degree virtual tour of Valencia on consumers’ behavior. The sample included 187 participants. Both self-reported and physiological measures were collected during the experimentation.

Results showed that participants in the immersive condition experienced a stronger sense of presence and higher physiological arousal than those exposed to nonimmersive content. Presence significantly mediated both the intention to visit and the intention to recommend the promoted venue. Physiological arousal mediated the relationship between media typology and the intention to recommend the destination. Upon introducing age as a moderating variable, the effect of physiological arousal on behavioral outcomes proves to be significant.

The study presents destination marketing organizations with a compelling use case for immersive technologies. It also offers design principles, potential applications and targeting strategies for VR marketing in hospitality management.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the combined effect of physiological arousal and presence on behavioral intentions in VR destination marketing, while also examining the impact of age as an individual characteristic.

This chapter takes a critical look at the sociological notion of ‘medicalisation’ in relation to recent trends and developments in neuroscience, neurotechnology and society, taking memory, medicine and the brain as our prime focus and the disease category of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) as our empirical case study. Five relational nexuses in particular are identified as relevant to these developments and debates, namely the bio-psych nexus, the pharma-psych nexus, the selves-subjectivity nexus, the wellness-enhancement nexus, and the neuroculture-neurofuture nexus. We show that developments in memory medicine and the shifting boundaries of cognitive health, as embodied and expressed in the case of MCI, shed further valuable light on these issues and the interconnectivity of these relational nexuses. As an emergent disease and susceptibility category, MCI illuminates not only the fuzzy boundaries between normal and abnormal cognitive functioning, but also the working of neuroscientific, neurocultural and pharmacological interests, which, in this case, are already claiming MCI as the next locus of enhancing the mind and optimising aging. Thinking both within and beyond medicalisation challenges us to find new ways to critically understand the ideas about life and health as they travel, translate or migrate from (neuro)scientific and clinical spheres to cultural life and patient experience.

Data-driven marketing is replacing conventional marketing strategies. The modern marketing strategy is based on insights derived from customer behavior information gathered from their facial expressions and neuro-signals. This study explores the potential for face recognition and neuro-marketing in modern-day marketing.

The study conducts an in-depth examination of the extant literature on neuro-marketing and facial recognition marketing. The articles for review are downloaded from the Scopus database, and PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) is then used to screen and choose the relevant papers. The systematic literature review method is applied to conduct the study.

An extensive review of the literature reveals that the domains of neuro-marketing and face recognition marketing remain understudied. The authors’ review of selected papers delivers five neuro-marketing and facial recognition marketing themes that are essential to modern marketing concepts.

Neuro-marketing and facial recognition marketing are artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled marketing techniques that assist in gaining cognitive insights into human behavior. The findings would be of use to managers in designing marketing strategies to enhance their marketing approach and boost conversion rates.

The uniqueness of this study lies in that it provides an updated review on neuro-marketing and face recognition marketing.

Technological progress and the advancement of the 4th Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0) are well underway. However, its influence on the transformation of core sectors from the perspective of consumer well-being remains under-explored. Seeking to bridge this gap in the marketing and public policy literature, this study aims to propose a conceptual framework to explicate how data-driven, intelligent and connected IR 4.0 technologies are blurring traditional boundaries between digital, physical and biological domains.

This is a conceptual paper using primarily a literature review of the field. The authors position the work as a contribution to consumer well-being and public policy literature from the lens of increasingly important in our technology-integrated society emerging technologies.

The authors define and conceptualize technology-enabled well-being (TEW), which allows a better understanding of transformative outcomes of IR 4.0 on three essential dimensions of consumer well-being: individual, societal and environmental. Finally, the authors discuss public policy implications and outline future research directions.

The authors highlight specific gaps in the literature on IR 4.0. First, past studies in consumer well-being did not incorporate substantial changes that emerging IR 4.0 technologies bring, especially across increasingly blurring digital, physical and biological domains. Second, past research focused on individual technologies and individual well-being. What is unaccounted for is the potential for a synergetic, proactive effect that emerging technologies bring on the aggregate level not only to individuals but also to society and the environment. Finally, understanding the differences between responses to different outcomes of technologies has important implications for developing public policy. Synergetic, proactive effect of technologies on core sectors such as healthcare, education, financial services, manufacturing and retailing is noted.

The following paper is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry PhD and innovator regarding his pioneering efforts and his personal journey of bringing a technological invention to market. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

The interviewee is Dr Howard Chizeck, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Washington (UW). Professor Chizeck is a research testbed leader for the Center for Neurotechnology (a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center) and also co-director of the UW BioRobotics Laboratory. In this interview, Chizeck shares the details on his latest startup, Olis Robotics.

Howard Jay Chizeck received his BS and MS degrees from Case Western Reserve University and the ScD degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He served as Chair of the Department of Systems, Control and Industrial Engineering at Case Western Reserve University and was also the Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Washington. His telerobotic research includes haptic navigation and control for telerobotic devices, including robotic surgery and underwater systems. His neural engineering work involves the design and security of brain-machine interfaces and the development of devices to control symptoms of essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease.

Professor Chizeck was elected as a Fellow of the IEEE in 1999 “for contributions to the use of control system theory in biomedical engineering” and he was elected to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows in 2011 for “contributions to the use of control system theory in functional electrical stimulation assisted walking.” From 2008 to 2012, he was a member of the Science Technology Advisory Panel of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Professor Chizeck currently serves on the Visiting Committee of the Case School of Engineering (Case Western Reserve University). He is a founder and advisor of Controlsoft Inc (Ohio) and also is a founder and Chair of the Board of Directors of Olis Robotics, Inc., which was established in 2013 (under the name of BluHaptics) to commercialize haptic rendering, haptic navigation and other UW telerobotic technologies. He holds approximately 20 patents, and he has published more than 250 scholarly papers.

Through a review of historically famous cases and a chronicle of neurotechnology development, this chapter discusses brain structure and brain function as two distinct yet interrelated paths to understand the relative contributions of anatomical and physiological mechanisms to the human brain–behavior relationship. From an organizational neuroscience perspective, the chapter describes over a dozen neuroimaging technologies that are classified under four groupings: morphologic, invasive metabolic, noninvasive metabolic, and electromagnetic. We then discuss neuroimaging variables that may be useful in social science investigations, and we underscore electroencephalography as a particularly useful modality for the study of individuals and groups in organizational settings. The chapter concludes by considering emerging science and novel brain technologies for the organizational researcher as we look to the future.