Abstract
The frontal alpha asymmetry (FAA) is a neurophysiological measure of motivation and preference. Despite the FAA is associated to commercial pleasantness, conflicting evidence emerged in the literature regarding its relationship with behavior. To study the association between FAA and consumers' decision, we manipulated a commercial script to elicit diverse consumers' attitudes and decisions and to evaluate whether the FAA score is associated to their final investment. A little informative script (S1) was used to polarize consumers' attitudes and investments toward unfavorable scores, while a more personalized message (S2) to elicit in customers a favorable attitude and higher investments. Twenty-one participants listened to the scripts, and their FAA, attitude, and monetary investment were measured. In S1, the FAA did not correlate with neither attitude nor the investment decision, while a robust negative correlation between these variables was found in S2. No other peripheral body and neural measures associated with attitude or final decision. Our data suggest that the FAA correlates with attitude and decision, when a commercial script is customized and provides an adequate information, likely leading the consumer to a more reasoned and planned decision-making process. When facilitating a favorable attitude toward an offer, the negative correlation of FAA and behavior may reflect the involvement of a control system, whose role is to monitor and govern possible conflicts between approach and avoidance motivations. This observation provides additional indication on the value of FAA as a marker of consumer behaviors, and how it could be affected by experimental and contextual bias.
Highlights
Research in Consumer Neuroscience developed different approaches to determine consumers’ attitude toward a given commercial message—i.e., the tendency to respond to a stimulus with some degree of favorableness or unfavorableness (Ajzen, 2008)—and their final choice, through behavioral, body peripheral, or neural measures (Vecchiato et al, 2014; Cherubino et al, 2019)
Two separate Bayesian paired samples T-test were performed to examine whether the attitude toward the offer score and the percentage of investment, respectively, where higher in Script 2 (S2) compared with Script 1 (S1)
We found a BF10 = 0.5 that indicated an anecdotal evidence in support of H0, that is an equality between the pupil diameter scores between S1 and S2
Summary
Research in Consumer Neuroscience developed different approaches to determine consumers’ attitude toward a given commercial message—i.e., the tendency to respond to a stimulus with some degree of favorableness or unfavorableness (Ajzen, 2008)—and their final choice, through behavioral, body peripheral, or neural measures (Vecchiato et al, 2014; Cherubino et al, 2019). The frontal Alpha rhythm (8–12 Hz) is linked to brain functions related to information processing, attention, decision-making, and emotion regulation (Cohen et al, 2009; Klimesch, 2012; Zhang et al, 2018; Misselhorn et al, 2019); high alpha power has been related to inhibitory control, while low power to neural activation (Larson et al, 1998; Benedek et al, 2011) To date, this neural marker has been interpreted to reflect a motivational direction and preference toward the stimulus (regardless of the experienced positive or negative affective valence) that occurs just prior to the behavior outcome (Harmon-Jones et al, 2010; Hewig, 2017). A review by Gable et al (2017) pointed out that, the relationship between left frontal activity and the approach motivation results more solid, defined as the behavioral approach system (BAS), the findings in support of a relationship between a right frontal activity and the avoidance motivation are mixed, and further research are needed
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