Emotional Experience and Advertising Effectiveness: on the use of EEG in marketing

This dissertation extends existing knowledge by elucidating two proposed aims of neuromarketing, using EEG. The first aim concerns offering additional insight into implicit processes (here, emotions). The second aim concerns contributing to predicting behavioral, market level, responses or ‘advertising effectiveness’

Measuring neural arousal for advertisements and its relationship with advertising success

Abundant research has established the important role of ad-evoked feelings on consumers’ reaction to advertising. However, measurement of feelings through explicit self-report is not without its limitations. The current study adds to previous work by showing a sophisticated way of first estimating how arousal is represented in the brain via an independent task (using EEG), and thereafter using this representation to measure arousal in response to advertisements. We then estimate the relationship between the identified process (arousal) and external measures of ad effectiveness (as measured by notability and attitude toward the ad). The results show that the neural measure of arousal is positively associated with notability of ads in the population at large, but may be negatively associated with attitude toward these ads. The implications for the application of EEG in ad testing and for understanding the relationship between arousal and effective advertising are discussed

Virtual Reality Exposure to Prepare Children for Surgery: Effects on Anxiety and Pain

We have developed a psychological intervention to prepare children for surgery under general anesthesia. This intervention consists of Virtual Reality Exposure. The effectiveness of this intervention to reduce anxiety and pain has been investigated in a randomized controlled trial

Snake pictures draw more early attention than spider pictures in non-phobic women: Evidence from event-related brain potentials

Snakes were probably the first predators of mammals and may have been important agents of evolutionary changes in the primate visual system allowing rapid visual detection of fearful stimuli (Isbell, 2006). By means of early and late attention-related brain potentials, we examined the hypothesis that more early visual attention is automatically allocated to snakes than to spiders. To measure the early posterior negativity (EPN), 24 healthy, non-phobic women watched the random rapid serial presentation of 600 snake pictures, 600 spider pictures, and 600 bird pictures (three pictures per second). To measure the late positive potential (LPP), they also watched similar pictures (30 pictures per stimulus category) in a non-speeded presentation. The EPN amplitude was largest for snake pictures, intermediate for spider pictures and smallest for bird pictures. The LPP was significantly larger for both snake and spider pictures when compared to bird pictures. Interestingly, spider fear (as measured by a questionnaire) was associated with EPN amplitude for spider pictures, whereas snake fear was not associated with EPN amplitude for snake pictures. The results suggest that ancestral priorities modulate the early capture of visual attention and that early attention to snakes is more innate and independent of reported fear

Increased functional sensorimotor network efficiency relates to disability in multiple sclerosis

BACKGROUND: Network abnormalities could help explain physical disability in multiple sclerosis (MS), which remains poorly understood. OBJECTIVE: This study investigates functional network efficiency changes in the sensorimotor system. METHODS: We included 222 MS patients, divided into low disability (LD, Expanded Disability Status Scale (EDSS) ⩽3.5, n = 185) and high disability (HD, EDSS ⩾6, n = 37), and 82 healthy controls (HC). Functional connectivity was assessed between 23 sensorimotor regions. Measures of efficiency were computed and compared between groups using general linear models corrected for age and sex. Binary logistic regression models related disability status to local functional network efficiency (LE), brain volumes and demographics. Functional connectivity patterns of regions important for disability were explored. RESULTS: HD patients demonstrated significantly higher LE of the left primary somatosensory cortex (S1) and right pallidum compared to LD and HC, and left premotor cortex compared to HC only. The logistic regression model for disability (R2 = 0.38) included age, deep grey matter volume and left S1 LE. S1 functional connectivity was increased with prefrontal and secondary sensory areas in HD patients, compared to LD and HC. CONCLUSION: Clinical disability in MS associates with functional sensorimotor increases in efficiency and connectivity, centred around S1, independent of structural damage

A nematode-specific ribonucleoprotein complex mediates interactions between the major nematode spliced leader snRNP and its target pre-mRNAs

Acknowledgements We thank Maheshika Kurukulasuriya for her assistance with immunoprecipitations from embryo extracts. Some strains were provided by the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center, which is funded by NIH Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (P40 OD010440). Sequencing was performed by the Centre for Genome-Enabled Biology and Medicine of the University of Aberdeen, and proteomics analysis by the Aberdeen proteomics facility. We thank Kate Burgoyne and Craig Pattinson (Aberdeen Proteomics) for technical support. We thank WormBase for providing the community resource that facilitated the interrogation of C. elegans molecular genetics used in this work . Author contribution: P.E., M.A., E.S.-M., R.F., M.W., B.M. and J.P. contributed experiments. J.P. and B.M. conceived the research and managed and coordinated the research activity; J.P. and B.M. acquired funding for the project; D.S. guided the proteomics analysis, M.W., B.M. and J.P. designed and implemented the computational analysis; M.W., B.M. and J.P. wrote the manuscript and prepared figures and tables.Peer reviewe

Implicit measurement of emotional experience and its dynamics

Although many studies revealed that emotions and their dynamics have a profound impact on cognition and behavior, it has proven difficult to unobtrusively measure emotions. In the current study, our objective was to distinguish different experiences elicited by audiovisual stimuli designed to evoke particularly happy, sad, fear and disgust emotions, using electroencephalography