ARF - World of Emotions

the visual system - the low-level attention has processed

World of Emotions - the logo.
Attention,
Involvement and 2. Why measure attention?
Motivation Even if we are not aware of it - visual attention is
always active in processing the world around us. Many of
Authors: these processes are automated and subconscious. There
Jakob de Lemos, Christian Valla are two levels of attention - low-level attention and
iMotions - Emotion Technology A/S selective attention. Low-level attention is automated and
info@imotionsglobal.com subconscious, scans the whole visual field and spots the
March 2008 eye catchers - the visual elements that grab attention.
Selective attention moves like a spotlight from one area
Abstract of the visual field to another, analyzing the elements in
Traditional marketing measurement methods have more detail. Selective attention moves according to some
shown inadequate. A new method is needed to measure attentional values being calculated from partly the
advertising impact on buying behavior. Emotion Tool® stimulus itself and partly by what is in our mind,
measures subconscious emotions that are critical for including emotions. Emotions participate in guiding and
attention and buying behavior. The method uses eye qualifying visual attention.
tracking data in a new way that makes it possible to
measure the immediate unconscious and uncontrollable We pay little attention to the many logos and brands we
emotional responses before they are cognitively are exposed to every day and consider them of little
perceived, interpreted, and biased by our mind. importance to us. We believe that these exposures do not
influence us considerably. Researchers at Duke
University have found that brief, subliminal exposures
1. Introduction - Logos and brands
(under the threshold of consciousness) to a well known
When reading a magazine, some ads immediately grab logo, have a much deeper impact than previously
our attention to be explored, and others are being believed. Apple has consistently through 25 years
ignored. Some ads are able to hold our attention until we associated the Apple logo with traits like creativity,
"get it," and this gives us an experience, with a certain originality and intelligent solutions. The research at Duke
emotional content. Certain visual elements grab attention University showed that subliminal exposures to the Apple
while others hold and direct attention. Certain ads we logo actually influenced the respondents to become more
remember well, others are quickly forgotten. In both creative and original in a following problem solving task
cases the ad has made a more or less powerful impact on - and thus mirroring directly the brand traits (Tanya
the viewer. Chartrand & Gavan Fitzsimons, 2008). This study shows
that subconscious processing of a logo (and obviously
People living in a city are exposed to e.g. Coca-Cola also brands and ads) is not only processed and stored, but
logos several times a day. Even if we have no recall or also have a direct impact on behavior. In other words;
conscious memory of having seen these logos, if asked, what we are exposed to has a subconscious impact that
they have been processed by our visual processing influence behavior directly. Even a short glimpse of a
system - more specifically by the low-level attention. logo or an ad can directly influence behavior, such as
This is the part of attention that is automatic, involuntary buying decision.
and subconscious.
When we experience an ad, we react to it with our
Although we have no recall of it if asked, the conscious, cognitive level and our subconscious,
information has been processed and has made an impact - emotional level. The stimulus itself, as well as what is in
in this case increased the brand awareness of Coca-Cola. our mind influence the experience. These elements
If being tested for recall, the results would be negative, determine how the ad will affect our behavior – the
but if tested for recognition - the result would be positive buying decision
(David Penn, 2007). The automated subconscious part of

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A study showed that people in a gambling card game long before conscious thought. The subconscious,
showed physiological arousal when picking up from the emotional system could qualify decision-making.
card decks that where “bad” and rigged to create loss.
This information changed their behavior to pick more Advertisements and images influence us even when we
cards from the rigged “good” card decks. If asked if they are not aware of them, and have no recall of them. Brand
could see no system in the game, but their subconscious awareness recognition is more relevant than recall.
had a knowledge about which card decks where “bad”. Recognition is to a high degree based on subconscious
The subconscious information (in this case a negative material such as emotions (Penn, 2007).
emotion) resulted in changed behavior (decision-making)
that was positive for their outcome. Consciously the Cognitive
respondents were not aware of this and could not report Visual Processing

it. The respondents, by their subconscious, emotional Conscious

system, became aware of the dangers and changed Selective Attention,
Language,
decision-making behavior accordingly, long before they Thoughts, Recall,
Associations.
became consciously aware of this (Bechara et al.,1994).
BUYING DECISION

Cognitive Consciously
Language, Emotional Visual
Level felt experience
Thoughts etc. Processing
'feelings'

Subconscious
Bodily Reactions,
Behavioral aspect, Attitudes
Buying Experienced
expressions, body Decisions
postures and gestures Habits decision Feelings,
Involvement,
Motivation, Desire.

Involuntary
Emotional Level Unconsciously
bodily reactions Fig 2. Shows the cognitive and emotional factors involved in visual
processing preceding a buying decision.
Fig 1. Shows the cognitive and emotional involvement in the
processing of visual information preceding a buying decision. It is found that emotions guide and qualify decision-
making (Damasio, 1994). These are subconscious
3. Why measure emotions? processes that cannot be accessed by respondents. Self
Marketing and advertisement research have mostly report or recall measures are therefore not helpful
used self-report or recall as measurement methods. Recall measurement methods. We cannot ask people about
is the conscious memory of an ad reported by the emotions and the subconscious material simply because
respondent. The problem with these methods is that they they have no conscious access to it. All that we can ask
only tap into the conscious part of cognition. These about is the feeling and the associations the ad produces.
methods do not measure subconscious material, such as Feelings are the part of emotions that have become
emotions. These measurement methods have their origin conscious. The problem with this level is that it is indirect
in older cognitive psychology. It was believed that an and influenced by thought (cognition). At this level
image would trigger thoughts in the respondent that associations, experience, group dynamics, psychological
would evoke some emotions that again trigger action. content, experienced demands and defense mechanisms,
such as rationalizing and intellectualization, influence
Brain research during the last decade has shown that and disturb the reporting, thus making it very difficult to
emotions precede conscious thinking and decision- analyze the results.
making. Neuroscience has shown that when a respondent
sees an image, emotions are triggered. Emotions Within the relative new field of neuromarketing, the
influence and guide visual attention and behavior methods currently given most attention for measuring
(Damasio, 1994). Thoughts then rationalize and emotions are: fMRI, EEG and GSR. Neuromarketing is
systematize the experience and the behavior. growing rapidly because of the possible consequences of
the above mentioned research has on marketing and
In the above mentioned study, it was shown that the advertisement research.
emotional system could collect and use vital information

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Much of the research within marketing and
advertisement research, executed by focus groups and
surveys, might be of little value as it is not conscious,
cognitive processing underlying brand awareness,
preferences and buying-decisions, but in fact emotions
and subconscious processes. These levels are only
accessible by measuring the changes in the brain and
body that are happening when emotions occur.
This "new" paradigm from modern brain research is in
line with analytical psychology that argues that most of
our thinking, emotions and behavior are based on the
subconscious processes, and that our conscious thought
can only account for about 10%.
New measurement methods are needed to access the
subconscious level of information.
4. Accessing emotions and other
subconscious information
fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imagery) is
detailed brain scanning, that takes high quality images of
the brain, as a chemical substance induced into the
bloodstream of the brain can be identified and show brain
activity. The problem with this method is that it is
expensive and demands a highly trained staff. It is also
not suitable to measure phenomena like emotions and
consciousness as these are non-local, parallel processes in
multiple brain parts (Penn, 2007). Another serious
problem with the method is that the scanning takes a long
time. The processes we are trying to measure are
happening in milliseconds, while the brain scanning takes
several seconds.
EEG (Electroencephalography) measures the
frequency of the brain waves with electrodes outside on
the scalp. The problem with using this method is that it
requires advanced equipment and trained staff. The
equipment must be mounted on the head of respondents
and connected to a computer. It is impossible, to set up
the experimental situation to resemble a relaxed and
natural environment.
GSR (galvanic skin response) measures the
conductivity on the surface of the fingers. Also referred
to as the electro-dermal response. The GSR measurement
is closely related to activation of the sympathetic branch
of the autonomous system. It measures physiological
arousal part of emotions by registering fluctuations in the
release of ions from the sweat glands of the skin
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ARF - World of Emotions
(Hugdahl, 2001). This measurement is used in lie-
detectors (polygraph), and is shown to be one of the best
physiological measurement methods for measuring
emotional responses. GSR is widely used in emotion
research. GSR has shown to be efficient for measuring
strong emotions like fear. The problem with GSR is that
it is not sensitive enough to measure weaker or more
subtle emotions. Those are what we mostly encounter
when exposed to advertisements. Another problem with
GSR is that the measurement is very sensitive to other
processes in the body. Thus the measurement situation
needs to be strictly controlled. That is fine for
experiments in a laboratory, but for testing in more
natural environment it becomes difficult to separate other
disturbing factors and to control the data collecting.
Furthermore the interpretation of the results requires
trained staff.
5. How do we gain access to emotions in a
more convenient way?
As mentioned above, much of earlier emotion research
and methods have failed due to the difficulty of
addressing the subconscious nature of emotions in a
convenient and precise way. This results in measuring
only the cognitive visual processing and only getting a
low resolution image of the Emotional Visual Processing.
New signal processing technology mixed with
neuroscience and eye tracking allow us to look beyond
these barriers. The non-intrusive technology that is
sensitive enough to read the processes on the
subconscious level and at the same time give us more
insight on the conscious level, is now available.
6. Accessing emotions and attention
through analysis of eye properties
The emotion and attention measurement system
Emotion Tool® can measure emotional response and
visual attention from humans looking at images, using a
method that is nonintrusive, reliable and valid.
Encapsulated in Emotion Tool®, advanced statistics,
image processing and eye tracking, enable marketers to
quantify emotions and visual attention, in an easy-to-use
and time efficient way.
Emotion Tool® quantifies emotions and attention by
analyzing the characteristics eye gaze, eye blink and
pupil dilation. Our eyes are parts of our brain hanging
outside our heads. The eyes are therefore the only part of
our outer body, which can give some direct information
of brain processes. One well-known parameter is pupil
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 ARF - World of Emotions

dilation as a result of changing light conditions, for the Emotion Tool™

brain to most effectively process the outer world. The
9.00
reactions of the eyes are in the same way affected by
emotional and cognitive visual processing in different

Emotional Involvement
ways. Pupil size is known to be related to emotional 6.75

reactions. For example, pupil dilation has been coupled

with activation of the sympathetic nervous system 4.50
(Granholm & Steinhauer, 2004; Steinhauer et al., 1983).
However, the relationship is complex because pupil size
is also related to cognitive processing load (Beatty & 2.25

Lucero-Wagoner, 2000; Staners et al., 1979) and the

amount of light or hue in visual stimulus (Granholm & 0
Steinhauer; 2004). Eye blink has also been related to Images
emotional reactions, for example with defensive reactions
like emotion-modulated eye blink startle (Bradley, et al., Fig 4. Shows typical measurement pattern for Emotion Tool® on
1999, Dichter et al., 2002, Ruiz-Padial & Sollers, 2003). images ranging from low to high emotional response.
Finally, gaze patterns have been linked to emotional
reactions (Calvo & Lang, 2004). In addition to the higher resolution when measuring
emotions, Emotion Tool® also has the advantage that it is
Emotion Tool® measures the above-mentioned subtle non intrusive (no equipment needs to be attached to the
changes in the eyes and has shown to be more precise in respondent) and discrete (the measurement tool is build
measuring emotions than GSR. Compared to GSR, into a computer screen). This makes the measurement
Emotion Tool® measures relatively weak emotional setting more natural, and a more realistic testing scenario
responses and more subtle emotions. If the emotion is can be created. Another advantage is that the reporting
over a certain threshold (the threshold is much lower and analysis is automated.
compared to GSR), Emotion Tool® indicates the level of
the emotional response on a scale reflecting emotional Besides giving insight into the emotional aspect of an
involvement. The figures below shows a typical ad, Emotion Tool® also gives insight into the visual
measurement pattern from GSR and Emotion Tool® in processing of the ad mapping out of the visual selective
respondents viewing images with different emotional attention of the ad. Selective attention function, like a
content ranging from low emotional involvement to high spotlight, moves from one to another. The eye movement
emotional involvement. is based on values given to the visual areas in the brain,
invoked by the combination of the stimulus
characteristics (color, contrast, shape) and what is in the
GSR
respondents mind (thoughts, emotions, feelings).
10.0

7. Bang & Olufsen case

Emotional Involvement

7.5
When the Danish high-end electronics manufacturer
Bang & Olufsen (B&O) had to design their new
5.0 awareness campaign in the US, they used Emotion
Tool®. The tool, uncovered the visual attention
2.5
processing and the emotional attention processing on
different approaches of their new campaign, to direct the
campaign to affect the conscious and subconscious level.
0

Images B&O combined the diagnostics from the eye

measurement method with a traditional survey, where
Fig 3. Shows typical measurement pattern for GSR on images ranging they measured likeness. The results pointed out the ads
from low to high emotional response.
with the weakest impact both on the attention and
emotional side and gave the design a clear indication on

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 ARF - World of Emotions

what to aim at in their campaign. Besides that the design

team got some quantified facts on the attention and
emotional impact where they usually only had their gut-
feel and other less objective facts.

Below are some results showing the raw outcome of

the test. From the results, the market researcher who
conducts the study – could easily derive the facts that the
B&O design team were interested in. E.g.; In what
designs do we have the most emotional impact? Does the
segment react emotionally consistent across age? Does
the product, functional description and brand gain any
selective attention.

Fig 6. Emotion Tool® output with quantified attention and emotion

measures

By combining the ads with the best possible cognitive

visual processing (visual attention) and the best
emotional visual processing (emotional involvement) the
design team had a clear guide to design the print
advertisements for their campaign.

8. Conclusion
Earlier views within cognitive psychology and
marketing research argued that an image or an ad would
create thoughts that influenced our emotions and
5. Emotion Tool® output with quantified attention and emotion behavior. This view has since been turned around by
measures modern brain science that has found that emotions and
subconscious processes precede, guide and qualify
behavior and decision-making. Even just a short glimpse
of a Coca-Cola logo or an Apple logo triggers emotions
in us that directly influence behavior, even if we are not
consciously aware of having seen the logo at all.

Traditional marketing research still uses self report

methods, such as surveys and focus groups as
measurement. This is equivalent to loosing your keys
inside a dark house, but going outside to look for them,
because the street lamp is on. This is because,
respondents cannot access their subconscious and their
emotions that guides attention and buying-decisions.

Marketing and ad research would be better of using a

methodology that can tap into the subconscious and

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 ARF - World of Emotions

emotional level of processing as this level precedes and Damasio, A.R. (1994): Descartes Error - Emotion,
qualifies buying-decisions. Emotion Tool® offers a Reason, and the Human Brain, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New
nonintrusive way to measure visual attention and York
emotional responses to ads. Granholm, E. & Steinhauer, S.R. (2004): Pupillometric
Measures of Cognitive and Emotional Processes,
In the example above with the B&O case, a traditional International Journal of Psychophysiology, 52, 1–6
approach to this would be to ask people what they
Hugdahl, K. (2001): Psychophysiology: The Mind-
thought of the commercial and invite people to a focus
body Perspective, Harvard University Press
group. The results would only be reflecting the after
effect of the processing, and only reflect a small fraction Penn, D. (2007). Brain Science: In Search of the
of what really goes on when the ads are processed. By Emotional Unconscious. In Marketing Research
using Emotion Tool® the B&O executives could get clear Handbook. ESOMAR. 2007.
measurements of visual attention and emotional Ruiz-Padial, L., Sollers, J.J., Vila, J. & Thayer, J.F.
responses to the different ads. This information could be (2003): The rhythm of the heart in the blink of an eye:
successfully used in the analysis and in the further Emotion-modulated startle magnitude covaries with heart
development of the ad. rate variability, Psychophysiology, 40, 306–313
Staners, R.F., Coulter, M., Sweet, A.W. & Murphy, P.
Emotion Tool® gives an advantage to other (1979): The papillary response as an indicator of arousal
measurements methods as it taps directly into the and cognition, Motivation and Emotion, 3 (4), 319-340
subconscious level and emotions, presenting valuable
Steinhauer, S. R., Boller, F., Zubin, J. & Pearlman, S.
information for advertisement analysis and advertisement
(1983): Pupillary dilation to emotional visual stimuli
design. As emotions are critical for attention and
revisited, Psychophysiology, 20
behavior, in this case buying decision, this information is
vital. Tanya Chartrand, Gavan Fitzsimons. (2008): Automatic
Effects of Brand Exposure on Motivated Behavior: How
Apple Makes You “Think Different”. In Press

9. References
Beatty, J. & Lucero-Wagoner, B. (2000): The pupillary
system, in Caccioppo, J., Tassinary, L.G. & Berntson, G.
(Eds.): The Handbook of Psychophysiology, Cambridge
University Press, Hillsdale, New York.
Bechara A, Damasio AR, Damasio H, Anderson SW
(1994). "Insensitivity to future consequences following
damage to human prefrontal cortex", Cognition 50: 7-15.
Bradley, M. M., Cuthbert, B. N. & Lang, P. J. (1999):
Affect and the startle reflex, in Dawson, M.E., Schell, A.
& Boehmelt, A. (Eds.): Startle modification: Implications
for neuroscience, cognitive science and clinical science,
Stanford University Press, Stanford, 242–276.
Calvo, M. G., & Lang, P. J. (2004). Gaze patterns when
looking at emotional pictures: Motivationally biased
attention. Motivation and Emotion, 28, 221–243.
Dichter, G.S., Tomarken, A.J. & Baucom, B.R. (2002):
Startle modulation before, during and after exposure to
emotional stimuli, International Journal of
Psychophysiology, 43, 191-196

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