Neurois: How To Conduct a Neuroimaging Study to Inform Information Systems Research

This tutorial discusses the potential of using functional brain imaging tools and methods to inform Information Systems (IS) research, termed NeuroIS. Economics, marketing, and psychology literature are already exploiting the potential of brain imaging to enrich their theories, methods, and data. IS researchers are still largely unaware of this potential, with the exception of some recent studies that started to show the potential of functional brain imaging to enrich IS theory development. This tutorial describes how IS researchers can use functional brain imaging tools to complement existing data sources. It overviews several functional brain imaging tools and proposes a set of opportunities that IS researchers can draw upon to inform IS theories. It also offers several examples of potentially fertile intersections of brain imaging and IS research and discusses step-by-step directions on how to conduct a NeuroIS study. This discussion is followed by several examples of NeuroIS studies in the context of trust, distrust, and uncertainty in e-commerce, technology adoption and use that spawns interesting new insights and implications. The tutorial concludes by discussing the potential of functional brain imaging tools, aiming to enhance the tools, and data in the IS researchers’ portfolio

Tutorial on the use of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) in IS Research

This tutorial will discuss a set of guidelines for conducting a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study in IS research. Given the increased interest in using neuroimaging tools in the IS discipline, this tutorial aims at presenting the key steps needed to conduct an fMRI study. The tutorial will capture the four key steps needed to undertake an fMRI study: (1) formulating the research question, (2) designing the fMRI protocol, (3) analyzing fMRI data, and (4) interpreting fMRI results. These steps will be illustrated with several comparative studies between psychometric self-reported measures of various IS constructs with their corresponding brain activations when subjects responded to the psychometric measures of these constructs while their brain activity was captured in an fMRI scanner. This tutorial will also discuss the extent and meaning of the correlations between the psychometric measures and the corresponding brain activations, drawing comparisons among these correlations in the more affective versus the more cognitive areas of the brain. The relative predictive power of brain and self-reported data will also be discussed. Finally, detailed guidelines for designing high-quality fMRI studies and for capturing the full descriptive and predictive power of brain data will be derived

Where Does TAM Reside in the Brain? The Neural Mechanisms Underlying Technology Adoption

Toward materializing the recently identified potential of cognitive neuroscience for IS research (Dimoka, Pavlou and Davis 2007), this paper demonstrates how functional neuroimaging tools can enhance our understanding of IS theories. Specifically, this study aims to uncover the neural mechanisms that underlie technology adoption by identifying the brain areas activated when users interact with websites that differ on their level of usefulness and ease of use. Besides localizing the neural correlates of the TAM constructs, this study helps understand their nature and dimensionality, as well as uncover hidden processes associated with intentions to use a system. The study also identifies certain technological antecedents of the TAM constructs, and shows that the brain activations associated with perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use predict selfreported intentions to use a system. The paper concludes by discussing the study’s implications for underscoring the potential of functional neuroimaging for IS research and the TAM literature

Neuro IS: The Potential of Cognitive Neuroscience for Information Systems Research

This paper proposes the idea of applying cognitive neuroscience theories, methods, and tools in Information Systems (IS) research (termed “Neuro-IS”), and introduces a research agenda for exploring the potential of cognitive neuroscience for IS research. Recent cognitive neuroscience discoveries have clarified the neural bases of human psychological processes and behavior and provided insights that may advance progress on core IS research questions on designing and deploying IT tools, technology adoption and use, e-commerce, virtual teams, human-computer interaction, decision making, and information sharing in organizational and market environments, among others. Functional neuroimaging techniques (fMRI, PET, EEG, MEG) have led to a better understanding of the brain areas and structures involved when people make decisions, deal with risk, uncertainty, and ambiguity, respond to rewards and social influences, trust and distrust, cooperate and compete, and acquire and process information. Similar to economics, marketing, and psychology, IS research may also benefit from integrating some of these new discoveries in cognitive neuroscience into IS theories about how IT supports human processes. Moreover, the use of neuroimaging techniques in IS research could complement traditional methods and data, such as self-report surveys, interviews, lab and field experiments, and archival data to integrate new objective sources of brain data for IS theory development and testing. This paper provides several examples of potentially fertile intersections of cognitive neuroscience and IS research on such areas as technology adoption and use, e-commerce, and group support systems. The paper also overviews today’s functional neuroimaging tools and gives guidelines on how IS researchers can utilize these tools to obtain additional new insights into IS phenomena. Finally, it discusses the implications of incorporating cognitive neuroscience theories and functional neuroimaging tools in neuro-IS research, aiming to enhance the diversity of theories, methods, tools, and data in the portfolio of IS researchers

Introduction to Human-Computer Interaction: Informing Design Utilizing Behavioral, Neurophysiological, and Design Science Methods Minitrack

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14P. Application of Neuroimaging Methods in IS Research: An fMRI Study of Online Recommendation Agents

Recommendation agents are deployed to give online consumers advice on products. This study focuses on how two demographic interface characteristics of online recommendation agents – ethnicity and gender – influence the way consumers agree with the product recommendations offered by anthropomorphic (humanoid) recommendation agents. Because consumers may not always straightforwardly self-report their true perceptions about entities that differ from them in their ethnicity and gender, this study applies neuroimaging methods (fMRI) to understand how the design of online recommendation agents can include anthropomorphic interfaces with different ethnicity and gender to enhance the interaction between consumers and agents. Subjects who either fully matched or fully mismatched with the ethnicity and gender of recommendation agents were asked to indicate their agreement with the advice provided by the recommendation agents while their brain activities were observed in an fMRI scanner. The results show that there is only activation in brain areas of intense emotion (amygdala) and fear of loss (insular cortex) when subjects disagree with a recommendation agent that does not match their ethnicity and gender, while there is no activation for recommendation agents that match their ethnicity and gender. The fMRI results suggest that ethnicity and gender mismatch spawns strong emotional responses in the brain, particularly among women

Incorporating Social Presence in the Design of the Anthropomorphic Interface of Recommendation Agents: Insights from an fMRI Study

Recommendation agents (RAs) are regularly used in online environments to give consumers advice on products. Since social components of human-like RAs (humanoid avatars) are important components in their adoption and use, this study focuses on how the design of the anthropomorphic interface of RAs in terms of social demographics, namely ethnicity and gender, can enhance the RA’s social presence to facilitate their adoption. Since social presence has been shown in the literature to predict the adoption and use of RAs, we examine whether match or mismatch in terms of the anthropomorphic RA’s ethnicity and gender can enhance the user’s social interaction with an RA. To overcome concerns of social desirability bias and political correctness when users assess the social presence of RAs that vary in their ethnicity and gender, we conducted a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) study to complement a traditional behavioral experiment. Our goal was to explain prior behavioral findings that showed that ethnicity (as opposed to gender) match is associated with higher social presence, particularly among women. Specifically, brain activity was captured in an fMRI scanner while users who varied on their ethnicity and gender to either match or mismatch the ethnicity and gender of four RAs evaluated each of the RAs on their social presence. Besides contributing to the neuroscience literature by identifying the brain activations that relate to social presence, the fMRI results shed light on the nature of social presence and explain earlier behavioral findings by showing gender differences in the neural correlates of social presence in terms of ethnicity and gender match and mismatch. Implications on designing anthropomorphic interfaces to embody social demographics to enhance social presence are discussed

Consumer Processing of Online Trust Signals: A Neuroimaging Study

The growth of online transactions coupled with the worldwide expansion of Internet-based information exchange has triggered fear, distrust and risk among online consumers. Despite the well-proven benefits to retailers when they include assurance services (online trust signals) such as seals of approval, rating systems or assurance statements in their websites, there is no consensus as the most trustworthy type. To fill this research gap, the current study reverts to neuroscience (fMRI) to compare the underlying brain mechanisms linked to each type. Twenty-nine subjects participated in an experiment simulating a low-involvement online purchase. The functional neuroimaging analysis reveals that seals of approval are the most trustworthy as they elicit activation of brain areas linked to reward and expected values. Although assurance statements reveal lower scores of trust than seals of approval, they do not arouse negative brain areas. By contrast, products accompanied by rating systems elicit brain areas linked to ambiguity, negativity and risk. Interestingly, more positive trust and purchase intentions toward seals of approval were predicted by the activation of value-computation areas, whereas higher scores of risk associated with rating systems were predicted by negative-related activations. These results offer invaluable insight into the psychological origin of trust conveyed to different types of online trust signals.2018-1