New technology is allowing marketing professionals to measure the neurophysiological responses of people as they are exposed to advertisements. While neurophysiological indicators can inform marketing strategies, a lack of research establishing the consistency of these measurements across stimulus types limits their real world application.

To address this limitation, Vinod Venkatraman, Vaidya S Viswanathan and colleagues from Ipsos analyzed sweating, heart rate and brain activity responses to different stimuli—like pictures, videos, advertisements and gambling. 

They find that individuals’ sweating and heart rate responses consistently correspond with arousal (how strong an emotion is) and valence (whether an emotion is positive or negative) across stimuli. Their findings also suggest that brain activity and heart rate can predict distinct marketing outcomes for an advertisement.