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Review
. 2021 May 17:2:672982.
doi: 10.3389/fnrgo.2021.672982. eCollection 2021.

Unlocking the Subconscious Consumer Bias: A Survey on the Past, Present, and Future of Hybrid EEG Schemes in Neuromarketing

Fotis P Kalaganis  1   2 , Kostas Georgiadis  1   2 , Vangelis P Oikonomou  2 , Nikos A Laskaris  1 , Spiros Nikolopoulos  2 , Ioannis Kompatsiaris  2
Affiliations
Review

Unlocking the Subconscious Consumer Bias: A Survey on the Past, Present, and Future of Hybrid EEG Schemes in Neuromarketing

Fotis P Kalaganis et al. Front Neuroergon. .

Abstract

Fueled by early success stories, the neuromarketing domain advanced rapidly during the last 10 years. As exciting new techniques were being adapted from medical research to the commercial domain, many neuroscientists and marketing practitioners have taken the chance to exploit them so as to uncover the answers of the most important marketing questions. Among the available neuroimaging technologies, electroencephalography (EEG) stands out as the less invasive and most affordable method. While not equally precise as other neuroimaging technologies in terms of spatial resolution, it can capture brain activity almost at the speed of cognition. Hence, EEG constitutes a favorable candidate for recording and subsequently decoding the consumers' brain activity. However, despite its wide use in neuromarketing, it cannot provide the complete picture alone. In order to overcome the limitations imposed by a single monitoring method, researchers focus on more holistic approaches. The exploitation of hybrid EEG schemes (e.g., combining EEG with eye-tracking, electrodermal activity, heart rate, and/or other) is ever growing and will hopefully allow neuromarketing to uncover consumers' behavior. Our survey revolves around last-decade hybrid neuromarketing schemes that involve EEG as the dominant modality. Beyond covering the relevant literature and state-of-the-art findings, we also provide future directions on the field, present the limitations that accompany each of the commonly employed monitoring methods and briefly discuss the omni-present ethical scepticizm related to neuromarketing.

Keywords: EEG; consumer neuroscience; eye tracker; hybrid; multimodal; neuromarketing; review; survey.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Most widely employed modalities and their corresponding use in neuromarketing.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(Top) The distribution of identified studies based on categorization with respect to the domains of applications. (Bottom left) Histogram indicating the cognitive processes that the identified studies investigate (overlapping). (Bottom Right) Histogram indicating the, complementary to the EEG, modalities employed in the identified studies (overlapping).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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