Electroencephalography (EEG)
What Is Electroencephalography (EEG)?
Electroencephalography is a recording of brain activity using small sensors applied to the scalp, which picks up the electrical potentials produced by your brain. This tells researchers about when your brain processes certain information, such as viewing a certain product or brand image, or when reading product or brand information.
EEG has a high temporal resolution (milliseconds), allowing researchers to identify in a millisecond time range the changes in the patterns of brain activity of individuals when they are exposed to different stimuli, such as advertisements, brands or products. When used alongside traditional market research techniques It answers the “why” beyond the “what”, evaluating cognitive processes such as attention, concentrated thinking, match/mis-match of events and arousal.
Can EEG inform us about emotions?
Yes, EEG activity is modulated by the emotional valence of a stimulus, meaning we can deduce whether something is being perceived positively or negatively. This can inform us about consumer preferences at the implicit, unconscious level.
When to use EEG
EEG is used by neuromarketing companies and should be used when you are interested in understanding how the brain implicitly or explicitly processes your brand, product or service. EEG will give you detailed information about the time course of this processing, telling you how early a product, brand or service is registered by the brain, and will inform you about the level of engagement with a product, brand or service.
