Accepted Manuscript

The application of EEG power for the prediction and

interpretation of consumer decision-making: A neuromarketing
study

Parnaz Golnar Nik, Sajjad Farashi, Mir-Shahram Safari

PII: S0031-9384(18)30672-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2019.04.025
Reference: PHB 12536
To appear in: Physiology & Behavior
Received date: 26 August 2018
Revised date: 15 April 2019
Accepted date: 27 April 2019

Please cite this article as: P.G. Nik, S. Farashi and M.-S. Safari, The application of
EEG power for the prediction and interpretation of consumer decision-making: A
neuromarketing study, Physiology & Behavior, https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.physbeh.2019.04.025

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As
a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The
manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before
it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may
be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the
journal pertain.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

The application of EEG power for the prediction and interpretation of

consumer decision-making: A neuromarketing study

Parnaz Golnar Nik1 , Sajjad Farashi2,3 , Mir-Shahram Safari*1,4

PT
Neuroscience Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 19615-1178

Iran

RI
2
Deputy of Research and Technology, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences, Hamadan, Iran

SC
3
Pediatric Developmental Disorder Research Center, Hamadan University of Medical Sciences,

Hamadan, Iran
NU
4
Brain Future Institute, Tehran, Iran
MA

*Correspondence:
ED

Dr. Mir Shahram Safari

Neuroscience Research Center,

T
EP

Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

Daneshjoo Blvd, Evin Ave, Tehran, IR. IRAN.

C
AC

Postal code: 1983963113

E-mail: safari@sbmu.ac.ir

Telefax: +98-21-22429765

Cell phone: +98-9120754304

Number of Figures: 5
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Number of tables: 5

Abstract-

The application of biometric data has been the center of attention for neuromarketing

researches. Understanding the underlying mechanisms behind consumer shopping behaviors

and the way that advertising affects such behavior are the most important issues that need

PT
more investigations. In this study, two purposes were focused including (1)the potential of

EEG spectral power for prediction of consumers’ preferences and (2)interpretation of the

RI
alteration of consumers’ decision-making in shopping behavior when the content of an

SC
advertisement including background color and promotions was changed. For this purpose,

advertisements related to different mobile phone brands which were different according to the
NU
content were shown to the participants followed by EEG (electroencephalography) recording.
MA

The power of the EEG data was used for finding the most important brain regions for

distinguishing between preferences and predicting the incidence of decision-making.

Furthermore, the results were used for interpretation of the observed participant behavior.
ED

The obtained results showed that the extracted features from EEG power could predict
T

consumer’s decision- making incidence with relatively high accuracy (>87%) and
EP

distinguished between “Like” and “Dislike” preferences with accuracy higher than 63%.
C

Also, the most discriminative channels for predicting the incidence of decision-making about
AC

liking/disliking or buying a product were found to be frontal and Centro-parietal locations

(Fp1, Cp3, Cpz) while the difference between “Like” and “Dislike” decisions was observed

mostly in the frontal electrodes (F4 and Ft8). Furthermore, the results showed that adding the

background color to the designed advertisement had a negative impact on the degree of liking

a product. colorIn conclusion, EEG data analysis can be used as a useful tool for predicting

costumer decision-making, while in order to obtain higher accuracies, other features should

be tested for distinguishing between different preferences.

 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Keywords- Neuromarketing, Electroencephalography (EEG), Decision- making, Preference

prediction, Advertisement content.

PT
1. Introduction

RI
Competition between companies with similar products forces them to spend big budgets for

attracting the consumer’s attention. The most important way of the marketing strategy for

SC
intriguing the consumers is the advertisement, however choosing the most effective design is
NU
an important challenge[1]. Usually the self- reported methods are used for evaluating the

impact of advertisement design on consumer sales promotion, however, these approaches are
MA

prone to intentional errors[2]. In this regard, automatic technologies are needed for finding

the most important aspects of customers’ preferences and the better-targeted advertisement
ED

design. Furthermore, automatic technologies can be used for predicting customer preferences

[3, 4], provided that the technology is well suited to marketing purposes.
T
EP

Recently, several types of automatic methods have been developed to be used in marketing
C

purposes. Some of these methods consider the neural mechanisms behind the decision-
AC

making process in marketing and construct the evolving research field on neuromarket ing.

Several types of measurements by monitoring biometric responses, including eye tracking

[5], facial expression[6], galvanic skin response[7], functional magnetic resonance imaging

(fMRI)[8]and electroencephalography (EEG)[9] have been used for tracking customer

attention in the neuromarketing studies. The acquired information from biometric responses
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

might be more reliable than questionnaires that are prone to intentional faults. Recently, the

application of EEG data has gained special attention in neuromarketing researches.

Khushaba et al. investigated customers’customers’ preferences (Like/Dislike) using the

frequency content of brain waves[10]. They showed that the spectral activity in frontal,

parietal and occipital areas was changed upon the participant’s preferences. Telpaz et al.

could predict the future customers’ preferences using EEG in the way that the N200

PT
component at the mid- frontal electrode site showed an increase for preferred products[9].

RI
Baldo et al. used EEG data for predicting consumer preferences for shoe products[11]. They

SC
showed that the prediction based on the brain scan could be more reliable compared with the

self-report based prediction for increasing the company profit. Murugappan et al. used EEG
NU
signals for identifying the most preferred automotive brands. Applying the video

advertisement of the brands and using the extracted features of the EEG power spectrum and
MA

probabilistic neural network classifier, the most desired brand was found with relatively high

accuracy[12]. Getting the sense of how emotions affect consumer’s attention is extremely
ED

valuable when thinking about the brands. In this way, the emotion processing might be

important in the neuromarketing. Soleymani et al. showed the ability of EEG signals for
T
EP

evaluating the arousal and valence level of the video clips[13]. Kawasaki and coworker used

EEG time-series to investigate the effect of color preferences on the brain neural mechanisms
C

[14]. They showed the change of theta power in the occipital region following the selection of
AC

the preferred color. In order to investigate the most discriminative EEG channels and

frequencies for consumer preferences, Yilmaz et al conducted an experiment according to

multichannel EEG recording[15]. They found that the F7 frontal and T6 temporal channels in

the low-frequency band were the most informative channels for discrimination between

consumer preferences.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

There are several neuromarketing related studies with managerial purposes regarding the

application of EEG for evaluating the way that advertisement design can affect the decision-

making and shopping behavior of the costumer. Lee evaluated how including the concept

related to human right in the advertisement, which might elicit the empathy, could increase

the willingness to pay among consumers. The enhanced theta activity in the frontal brain

region which is related to the affective empathic response was proposed for eliciting empathy

PT
and increased rate of decisions for purchase[16]. Jin et al. investigated the effect of a product

RI
description on consumer decision in online shopping using ERP analysis. The results showed

SC
that negative framing caused more attention while positive framing produced less decision

difficulty and higher purchase intention [17], which is an important issue in marketing. Also,
NU
Ma et al. reported the negative effect of negative emotion induced by specific pictures on

brand extension [18]. Some of the EEG based studies have been conducted in order to
MA

investigate the hemispheric symmetry or asymmetry of brain activities in response to

different stimuli in neuromarketing researches. The frontal asymmetry measures can be used
ED

as an indicator for evaluating the advertisement potential for the way that subject makes a

decision about the product and eliciting the purchase tendencies [19]. Vecchiato et al. showed
T
EP

that pleasant and unpleasant advertisements increased theta and alpha activities in different

brain hemisphere [20]. In neuromarketing, the asymmetry of alpha activity in the frontal
C

brain region has been used to investigate the liking [21], attractiveness[22] and predicting
AC

purchase decision [23].Brain mechanisms behind the decision- making process have been

considered as an important issue in neuroscience and neuromarketing. Several studies have

shown the special role of prefrontal cortex for decision- making [24, 25]. According to the

study of Heekeren et al., the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) combines the

sensory evidence of perceptual decisions. Their study exhibited a correlation between the

DLPFC activity and sensory areas of visual cortex [26]. Using fMRI technology, Daw et al.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

showed that frontopolar cortex and intraparietal sulcus were activated for exploratory

decisions while striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex were responsible for value-based

decision- making [27]. In order to find why human showed subjective preferences to Coca-

Cola and Pepsi, McClure et al. showed that there was a consistent neural response related to

the ventromedial prefrontal cortex for the anonymous beverage taste, while a-priori

knowledge of product affected the behavioral preferences and measures brain responses [28].

PT
RI
Even though the existing studies show the benefits of EEG signal to neuromarketing

SC
applications, there are several open questions that should be addressed using further
NU
researches. Among these questions are the qualitative ability of EEG signal for decision-

making and preference prediction, the impact of stimulus content on the preferences and
MA

decision- making process and also the correlation between brain electrical activities and

customer decision about the product.

ED

Some studies show a correlation between the visual complexity of an advertisement and the

influence of that on an advertisement. The degree of visual complexity on a web page is

T

determined by the combination of text style, the range of colors and navigational features
EP

such as graphics, tables and hyperlinks[29]. In fact the variety of visual stimuli (such as
C

background color or promotions) besides the viewer’s familiarity with the stimuli determine
AC

the visual complexity [30]. It should be noted that our calculation based on Shannon entropy

for a color image indicates that adding background color and promotion to the advertisement

increases the entropy and hence the complexity, possibly due to the increased level of

information when these features are added. It was shown that increasing visual complexity

promoted cognitive load[30] while the cognitive load applied negative effect on consumer

decision-making [31].
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

In spite of the managerial importance of the way that advertisement content can influence

costumers’ decision about a product, there are a few studies about the effect of design

methodologies and variables. In order to influence the individual’s mind, color can be

employed as a marketing tool [32] for example in advertisement designing. Colors can affect

the way that mind interprets the objects. Climbalo et al. tested the relation between colors and

emotions and found that the yellow, orange and blue colors could trigger happy emotions

PT
color[33] . Kotler reported that colors could create attention[34] and hence changed

RI
behavioral intention. In this regard, some researches have been conducted to investigate the

SC
effect of colors on the preferences of consumers [35, 36]. Hall et al. showed that using the

preferred color for web page background led to a higher intention to purchase the advertised
NU
object on the site [37]. Bagchi et al studied the effect of a red background on willingness to

pay in auctions. The results showed that such red background decreased the offered prices for
MA

the product [38]. Chan et al. showed that the visual cues like images and color of a product in

business plans changed the investor decision about the product. Their finding showed the negative
ED

effect of red color during screening decision [39].

In the present work, the effect of background color on the costumers’ preferences was
T
EP

studied. Since most of the domestic companies use an orange background color and this color

motivates happy emotion [33], this color was chosen as a background color.
C

The purpose of this study is to investigate how accurately the power of EEG signals can
AC

distinguish different consumer’s preferences and predicts the incidence of decision-making.

Furthermore, the effect of the content of the advertisement on the consumer decision is

studied using the EEG signals. Color plays a pivotal role in visual merchandising and can

affect consumer behavior and also purchase decisions [40] Via, for example, increasing

brand recognition[41] Or triggering the emotions [42]. In the present work, the hypothesis

that adding a background color in advertisement designing might affect the way that
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

consumer decides about a product has been studied. During performing different physical or

mental tasks, specific areas of the brain are activated. In this regard, it is hypothesized that

measuring electrical activity of brain using EEG technology might be a useful tool for

distinguishing between these tasks. Automatic preference prediction using EEG signals and

the way that advertisement content affects the consumer preferences are important research

zones for commercial companies which have not been considered well. In this way, multi-

PT
channel EEG recording and the mobile phone advertisement presentation using a designed

RI
computerized task has been used simultaneously.

2. Material and Methods

SC
NU
2.1 Experimental procedure
MA

In order to investigate the ability of EEG power to distinguish between consumer preferences

a computerized task for mobile brands has been designed in which the participants asked to
ED

make a decision for Liking/Disliking or Buying the advertised product. The mobile phones
T

are the most attractive product among young people and its turnover is relatively high. In this
EP

regard, there is a great competition between different companies for attracting consumer
C

attention using purposefully designed advertisements. For this reason, mobile phone was the
AC

focus of this study.

For each brand, a series of mobile phone advertisements have been displayed to the

participants in the successive order. For each specific brand, the first advertisement contains

the mobile picture, name, properties and the price. Other three advertisements are similar to

the first one except that for one of them an orange marginal background has been added while

for third one some promotions like discount and free shipping are added to the advertisement.

The fourth advertisement contains all information embedded in the first one in addition to the
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

orange marginal background and the promotions. In the present study, these advertisements

are called Simple, SimpleBack, SimplePromo and PromoBack, respectively. In order to

remove the learning bias, a randomized order for presenting the advertisements was used.

While for all subjects the order of presenting mobile phone brands was Apple, Meizu,

Samsung, and Nokia, respectively, the order for Simple, SimpleBack, SimplePromo, BackPromo

was selected to be randomized between these brands. These ads have been designed for Persian

PT
native language speakers. In order to mitigate the effect of brand familiarity on the results of

RI
analyses, both familiar and unfamiliar brands (for example Apple and Meizu, respectively)

SC
have been considered.

It should be noted that in a pilot study several mobile phone models were listed from Apple,
NU
Samsung, Nokia, Meizu, LG, Huawei, and Sony. Fifty participants (independent from the
MA

subjects whom their EEG data acquired but with the same characteristics) were asked to rate

the models according to the familiarity from 0 to 5. The overall result showed that Apple and
ED

Samsung were the most familiar brands while the Nokia and Meizu were less familiar among

others. Even though the Nokia brand is a well-established brand in Iran, the old model used in
T

our study might be the reason that the participant rated that as an unfamiliar brand. According
EP

to such rating, two most familiar (Apple and Samsung) and two less familiars (Nokia and
C

Meizu) brands were selected for analysis.

AC

Each advertisement has been displayed for 20s followed by a 5s fixation cross on screen as

inter-trial- interval. Participants, who the native language is Persian, are asked to mark each

brand as “Like” or “Dislike” by pressing the predefined keys on the computer keyboard.

Furthermore, the participant can select to “Buy” each brand by pressing on a space bar of the

keyboard. However, the participants can leave the trial without any “Like/Dislike/Buy” tag.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

This guarantees that the subject tags the brand based on his/her real feelings. During

displaying the advertisements, the EEG of each subject is recorded simultaneously.

In this study, four mobile brands (Apple, Samsung, Nokia, and Meizu) have been considered

for evaluating the capability of EEG recording in order to predict customers’ preferences and

the way that background current and promotion affect the consumer’s preferences. The

overall procedure of the experiment is summarized in Figure 1.

PT
RI
SC
NU
MA
T ED
C EP

Figure 1 Experimental design for the current study. (A)In each trial, an advertisement related to a
AC

mobile phone model of a specific brand is shown to the participant. The advertisement contains

information about product properties and the price. (B) For each specific product, four

advertisements including Simple, SimpleBack, SimplePromo, BackPromo, which are different

according to the content (background color and promotions), are displayed in a randomized mode.

(C) The EEG data using a 32-channel EEG system according to the 10-20 system is acquired

during the advertisement presentation.

 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

2.2 EEG data acquisition and preprocessing

The EEG data of 16 healthy Caucasian participants (9 males and 7 females, age: 23±3 years)

has been acquired and pre-processed using EEGLAB toolbox within the MATLAB

environment. The participants have been selected among undergraduate students of two top

universities of Tehran, Iran. All participants signed a consent form before starting the task.

All data presented in this study are in accordance with the guidelines for the care and use of

PT
human in the National Institute of Health and approval of ethics committee of the Shahid

RI
Beheshti University of Medical Science. The electrical activity of different brain regions has

SC
been recorded using a 32-channel electrode system, according to the 10-20 system, connected

to EEG8 amplifiers (Contact Precision Instruments, Uk). The EEG8 software, Psychlab
NU
AcquireData, was used for adjusting the amplifier gain and the edges of bandpass filter,

impedance check, and recording procedure. The amplified data at a gain of 2000 has been a
MA

bandpassed in the 0.3-40 Hz region and digitized at 256 sample/s using a 16-bit A/D

converter of Psychlab EEG8. The reference electrode has been placed on the mastoid bone,
ED

behind the left ear. Before starting the acquisition procedure, the impedance of each electrode

has been kept below the 5KΩ. The events markers correspond to the advertisement
T
EP

presentation time stamp have been sent via LPT port to the synchronized box of the system.

In order to remove eye blink, eye movement and EMG arteficts, the independent component
C

analysis (ICA) has been performed, while the bad segments remained after ICA have been
AC

removed by the visual inspection of the data. All required steps for data pre-processing were

performed in EEGLAB toolbox. In order to obtain power spectral density and related spectra l

features of the purified data, we have used our own code in Matlab (Mathworks, MA, USA).

In order to check out if the EEG power changes significantly when the subject preferences

change, the power spectral density (PSD) of the recorded EEG data has been calculated using

the Welch method. All trials marked as “Like”, “Dislike” and “Buy” among all subjects have
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

been extracted separately and in this way, three categories as “Like”, “Dislike” and “Buy”

have been constructed. Furthermore, the trials that the subject has not marked them as “Like”,

”Dislike” or “Buy” (untagged trials) are considered as “Neutral” and constitute the fourth

category for statistical analysis purposes. For constructing the feature vector for EEG data of

each trial, the relative power (normalized to the power in whole frequency range) for

different brain waves (δ, θ, α and β) and the power ratios (θ/δ, α/δ, β/δ, α/θ, β/θ, β/α) for all

PT
32 channels have been calculated based on the obtained PSD.

RI
SC
2-3. SVM and LDA classifiers

Support vector machine (SVM) classifiers are supervised classifiers and according to the
NU
applied kernel is used for performing linear or non- linear classification [43]. For d-

dimensional data however, there are many hypersurfaces that can classify the samples, the
MA

best one is obtained the maximum separation between the samples belong to different classes.

The SVM algorithm searches for such hypersurfaces if exist. According to the train data,
ED

SVM finds the normal vector perpendicular to the separating hypersurfaces and the

hypersurface offset provided that the maximum separation between classes is obtained.
T
EP

In this paper, the Gaussian radial basis function (RBF) kernel has been used.

Another classifier which has been used for classification in the present work is linear
C

discriminant analysis (LDA) [44]. The main goal of LDA is to reduce the dimensionality of a
AC

dataset by projecting data to a new subspace. In brief, the LDA method calculates between-

class and within-class scatter matrices, computes the eigenvectors and corresponding

eigenvalues. Removing some eigenvectors with lowest eigenvalues, LDA transforms the

dataset using the matrix of remained eigenvectors to the new subspace in which the within

classes distance is minimal and between-class distances is maximal.

 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

2-4. Statistical analysis

In order to investigate if the conditions are statistically different, the ANOVA analysis was

performed for the acquired features for these conditions. The multiple comparison correction

using the Tukey-Kramer method was applied for correcting the initial significant threshold 0f

0.01. The MATLAB statistical analysis toolbox was used for this purpose.

PT
Furthermore, for evaluating the classification performance, the sensitivity and specificity of

RI
the proposed method for preference prediction have been defined as Eq (1) and (2).

Sensitivity = TP/(TP + FN) (1)

SC
Specificity (%) = TN/(TN + FP) (2)
NU
In Eq(2) and (3), TP, FN, TN, and FP refers to true positive, false negative, true negative and
MA

false positive rates, respectively.

The sensitivity and specificity are used for classifier validation [45] and shows to what extent
ED

the classifier performs for each specific class. There is a trade-off between sensitivity and

specificity factors and the balance between them is demanded. These measures show the
T
EP

performance of the classification in point of avoiding false negative and false positive,

respectively.
C

The accuracy of the method is calculated according to Eq(3) as below.

AC

TP+TN
accuracy(%) = (3)
TP+TN+FN+TN

3. Results

3.1 Prediction of consumer preferences using the EEG power spectrum

 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

In order to investigate if the estimated power of EEG data was consistent with the

corresponding neuromarketing researches, the average power for the left frontal (Fp1, F3, F7,

Ft7, Fc3) and right frontal (Fp2, F4, F8, Ft8, Fc4) electrodes has been calculated for “Like”

and “Dislike” preferences. Results showed that the like preference increased the EEG power

of theta band in the left frontal region while dislike preference increased the theta band power

PT
in the right frontal region (p<0.01). This result was consistent with other studies [46]. The

RI
same result was observed for the alpha band [20, 46]. Also, the theta band activity in the right

hemisphere was found to be higher for “Dislike” compared with the “Like” preference as

SC
reported previously [20].
NU
The consumer decision incidence happenes when the dynamical state of the brain alters
MA

compared with the neutral state. In Figure 2, the power of EEG signals when participants

made a decision about the presented advertisement has been compared with a neutral state. In
ED

this figure, the distribution of 1-pvalue for different recording sites, when the feature vector

obtained from PSD of related “Like”, “Dislike” and “Buy” trials are compared with “Neutral”
T
EP

condition, is displayed. In Figure2the hotter color in each location shows the more

statistically difference between the neutral condition and the condition that participants make
C

a decision for buying the product or rate it as “Like” or ”Dislike”.

AC
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

PT
RI
SC
NU
MA
ED

Fig. 2 The 1-pvalue distribution for differences between “Like”, “Dislike” or “Buy”

decision when compared with “Neutral” condition. (A) Relative power for different
T
EP

frequency bands and (B) Power ratios. Each point in the head montage shows 1-pvalue,

where p-value obtained by student t-test between features calculated for trials marked
C

as neutral and trials marked as “Like”, “Dislike” or “Buy”. The RGB color coding has
AC

been used in (A) and (B) panels.

The ANOVA analysis on features extracted based on frequency content of EEG data

followed by multiple comparison correction showed that “Buy” and “Dislike” condit ions

were statistically different at Ft7(α/θ), F4,T3, T4, F7, O1,O2,Oz, Pz, Fc3 (β/α) and Fc3 (β/θ)

while the “Like” and “Dislike” conditions were different at T4, O2, Fc3, Tp8 (β/α) and Fc3
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

(β/θ). The statistical analysis showed any differences between “Buy”, “Like” and “Dislike”

conditions according to the features extracted based on the EEG relative power of different

brain waves (σ, θ, α, β). These results were reported for the p- values smaller than 0.01 and

indicated the importance of β/α ratio for discriminating the consumer’s preferences.

In order to check out how EEG power can be used for preference prediction, the one- versus-

PT
one classification scheme has been performed using linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and

RI
support vector machine (SVM) classifiers for feature vectors obtained for segments tagged as

“Like”, “Dislike” and “Buy”. The result has been reported in Tables 1 and 2.

SC
NU
MA
ED

Table1. Maximum classification accuracy for One(Like, Dislike, Buy)-Versus-

Neutral using SVM classifier with RBF kernel. The results were obtained for 10-
T
EP

fold cross validation.

S pecificity(%) S ensitivity(%) Accuracy(%) Electrode Other electrodes with

C

high
discrimination(>85%)
Like vs. 87.71(±9.56) 87.02(±2.53) 87.06 (±2.82) Fp1
AC

Neutral
Dislike vs. 58.24(±12.9) 91.43(±0.90) 95.96(±2.38) Cp3 Fp1, Oz
Neutral
Buy vs. 93.04(±5.15) 93.71(±4.16) 93.87(±4.11) Fp1
Neutral

Table 2. Maximum classification accuracy for One (Like, Dislike, Buy)-Versus-

Neutral using LDA classifier. The results were obtained for 10-fold cross

validation.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Sensitivity(% ) Specificity(% ) Accuracy(% ) Electrode Other electrodes with

high
discrimination(>90% )
Like vs. 91.91(±3.36) 76.05(±9.49) 89.62(±3.96) Cp3
Neutral
Dislike 99.83(±0.36) 65.09(±16.19) 95.46(±2.12) Cpz F7, Fpz, T6
vs.
Neutral
Buy vs. 98.26(±1.24) 49.51(±6.19) 90.16(±0.5) Cpz
Neutral

Also, the classification accuracy for discriminating between different decisions has been

PT
reported in Tables 3 and 4 for SVM and LDA classifier, respectively.

RI
SC
NU
MA

Table 3. Maximum classification accuracy for One-Vs-One classification using LDA

classifier. The results were obtained for 10-fold cross validation.

ED

Sensitivity(% ) Specificity(% ) Accuracy(% ) Electrode Other electrodes with

high
T

discrimination(>50% )
Like 53.53(±6.65) 73.05(±4.57) 63.95(±5.19) F4 Tp7
EP

vs.

Dislike
C

Buy 66.30(±4.73) 53.06(±4.74) 60.98(±3.16) Fc4

AC

vs.

Dislike

Buy 51.84(±1.62) 48.04(±5.60) 49.77(±2.51) T5

vs.

Like
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Table 4. Maximum classification accuracy for One-Vs-One classification using SVM

classifier. The results were obtained for 10-fold cross validation.

Sensitivity(% ) Specificity(% ) Accuracy(% ) Electrode Other electrodes with

high
discrimination(>50% )
Like vs. 54.05(±5.90) 71.85(±5.79) 63.62(±4.16) Ft8 Cz, T3, F7, Tp7

Dislike

PT
Buy vs. 74.76(±10.06) 34.657(±6.59) 58.80(±7.17) F3

RI
Dislike

Buy vs. 37.28(±5.27) 50.54 (±6.70) 43.14(±3.38) Fp1

SC
Like
NU
MA

3.2 Behavioral data analysis and the correlation with EEG

According to the obtained behavioral data, the average reaction time for making a decision
ED

about different types of advertisement (described in the experimental procedure section) has
T

been calculated. Based on the power of EEG signals, it is worth to indicate how the power of
EP

EEG signal correlates with such reaction time. In Figure 3 the reaction time of decision-

making for different types of advertisement (Simple, SimpleBack, SimplePromo, and

C
AC

BackPromo) has been shown. Each bar in this figure shows the average time after

advertisement presentation that consumer marks the advertisement as “Like”, “Dislike” or

“Buy”.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

PT
Fig. 3. Average reaction time for making a decision (like, dislike or buy) about different

RI
types of advertisements. Asterisk symbol shows a statistically significant difference with

SC
a “Simple” advertisement. The vertical line on each bar shows the standard deviation of
NU
reaction time.
MA

Figure 3 shows that the consumer’s reaction time decreases significantly (p<0.01) when a

color background is added to the advertisement. This reduction of reaction time is also
ED

observed for the situation in which promotion or background/promotio n is added to the

advertisement, while such reduction is not statistically significant. The changing of the
T

relative power of EEG in different frequency bands and different recording sites, when the
EP

content of advertisement changes, have been compared with the reaction time of decision
C

making. This comparison shows that the positive correlation exists for P4 (p<0.05, r=98.14)
AC

and Oz (p<0.01, r=99.69) recording sites in delta and beta bands, respectively, while the

negative correlation (p<0.05, r=-98.94) is observed in the same recording locations for the

alpha frequency band.

One of the main purposes of this study is that how changing the complexity of the

advertisement can affect consumer shopping behavior. For this purpose, the effect of adding

background color or promotion to the advertisement content on the consumer decision about

the product has been considered based on the behavioral data. Figure 4 shows the number of
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

decision changing from “Like” to “Dislike” and vice versa following adding the background

or promotion to the advertisement. The behavioral data depicted in Figure 4 shows that

increasing the complexity of an advertisement by adding the background color or promotions

affect the consumer decision about the product. According to this data, the consumers’

preferences upon adding the background to the simple advertisement have mostly changed

from “Like” to “Dislike”. Also, when the background is added to the advertisement contains

PT
promotion, most of the participants change the initial “Like” decision to “Dislike”.

RI
SC
NU
MA
T ED
EP

Fig. 4 The effect of adding background and promotion on consumer decision change.
C

Upward bars show changing the decision from “Dislike” to “Like” and downward bars
AC

indicate changing from “Like” to “Dislike”.

In order to investigate what happens to the brain activities during the addition of background

color to the advertisement, the alteration of relative power and power ratios in different brain

regions has been calculated. Figure 5 shows the power (relative or ratio) and recording
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

locations in which the measure is statistically different from the condition that decision

remains unchanged color.

PT
RI
SC
NU
MA

Fig. 5 Statistically significant changes of EEG power, when the subject decision is
ED

changed from (A) “Like” to “Dislike” or (B) “Dislike” to “Like”. GND is a channel

located between Fpz and Fz.

T
EP

Figure 5(A) shows that when the subject changes the decision from “Like” to “Dislike”, the
C

EEG power decreases in the channels in which the power or power ratio is statistically
AC

different from control situation (no change in the decision). In this regard, the ∆power

(powerLike-powerDislike) is positive. The frontal, central and parietal regions are the regions

where brain activity affected during changing the decision from “Like” to “Dislike”.

However, according to Figure 5(B) changing the decision from “Dislike” to “Like” increases

the power or power ratio in most of the significant channels. This means that the average

brain power when subject likes an object is higher than that of the dislike condition. The most
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

significant increase and decrease of the brain wave power are observed for β/α ratio in C4

and F8 locations, respectively. In addition, this simulation shows that the β/α ratio is higher

for the situation that subject likes the advertisement.

1. Discussion

Results depicted in Figure 2 show that the distribution of p-values is relatively similar for

PT
“Like” or “Buy” decisions while such distribution is more different for “Dislike” decision.

RI
This probably indicates the common brain neural networks engaged for processing “Like”

and “Buy” decisions. This is reasonable because most of the time consumers buy the product

SC
that likes it.
NU
The p-value distribution for relative power differences between “Like” or “Buy” decision

with “Neutral” is relatively similar for all frequency bands, emphasizing that the same neural
MA

networks are responsible for both of them, while for “Dislike” decision the p-value

distribution is slightly different. In the case of “Like” or “Buy” decisions, for δ and α
ED

frequency bands, the limited area of frontal and parietal lobes are activated differently

compared with neutral condition, while for θ and β bands the difference is seen in more
T
EP

locations, especially in the temporal region for θ and left parietal lobe for β. The temporal

dynamics of decision-making in the brain was suggested by literature[47]. For “Dislike”

C

decision, the θ band shows a significant difference with the neutral condition in several brain
AC

locations.

Figure 2(B) shows that the p-value distribution for different decisions is more different for

power ratios compared with the relative powers, especially for α/θ and β/θ power ratios. This

result suggests that using PSD based features might be suitable for predicting the incidence of

a decision. Although, the powers extracted based on PSD are more different between
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

“Like/Buy” and “Dislike” decisions, distinguishing between “Like” and “Buy” decisions

should be relatively difficult using PSD based features.

The reported results of Table. 1 and Table. 2 show that the PSD extracted features can

distinguish the consumer’s decision about a product (like, dislike or buy it) with relatively

high accuracy (>87%). The Centro-parietal and frontal lobes are the most important brain

locations for discriminating the neutral state from the situation that the consumer makes a

PT
decision for tagging the product. This is an interesting outcome as the parietal area are highly

RI
connected to the frontal region for many aspects of action planning and decision-making

SC
process[48].

The results reported in Table. 3 and Table. 4 indicate that distinguishing between “Like/Buy”
NU
and “Dislike” decisions are possible with accuracy higher than chance, however, it is not

possible to distinguish between “Buy” and “Like” decisions, possibly due to the common
MA

brain mechanisms involved for such decisions.

According to Table 3 and 4, the maximum accuracy for distinguishing between “Like” and
ED

“Dislike” decisions is obtained for F4 electrode while for “Buy” and “Dislike” decisions, it is

obtained for Fc4 electrode location. Both of these locations are near to the frontal lobe which
T
EP

may indicate that differences between “Like” and “Dislike” is possibly emerged from the

different neural circuits in the frontal lobe for processing these preferences. Before this,
C

Pereira et al. showed that in response to the liked music, smaller regions of the frontal lobe
AC

were activated compared with disliked music[49].

Comparison between the sensitivity and specificity measures for SVM and LDA classifiers

indicated that the “Like” and “Buy” conditions were separated better from neutral by non-

linear SVM classifier instead of linear LDA classifier, since the point on (sensitivity, 1-

specificity) curve or ROC curve was closer to the top- left corner of the box. However, the
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

“Dislike” condition was identified from neutral by LDA classifier. Furthermore, considering

the sensitivity and specificity values from Table3 and 4, the SVM classifier showed better

performance for separating the consumer preferences from each other. This might be due to

the nonlinear characteristic of brain function that could be distinguished better with a

nonlinear classifier.

PT
The results of Figure 3 propose that the brain regions encompassed by P4 and Oz recording

RI
locations might have an important role in the timing of the decision about participant

SC
selection. Previous studies showed that the alpha frequency band could be used for prediction

of human reaction time[50]. Also, it was shown that the peak of the alpha frequency band
NU
was correlated with working memory performance [51]. In our task, retrieving the previous

information of each mobile brand could enhance the decision- making process due to the
MA

relatively high common content of the successive advertisements. In this regard, increasing

the alpha power could decrease the reaction time and the above- mentioned negative
ED

correlation in thealpha frequency band could be justified. Furthermore, the right-parietal

alpha power is associated with ventral attention network and increased with attention
T
EP

demand[52], therefore the increase of alpha activity in P4 location might indicate increased

attention that reduced reaction time for decision- making. It is believed that ongoing beta
C

power is associated with memory formation for visual stimulus [53] which possibly,
AC

increasing its power increases attention and cognitive activity [54]. In this way, the higher

beta power may indicate a slower decision-making process and longer reaction time (i.e. the

above-mentioned positive correlation in the β band).

The results of Figure 5 show that by adding the background color to the visual stimulus

(advertisement), the frontal (Fp1, F3, F8, F7, GND) and parietal (Pz, Tp7) lobe activities are

affected. The previous findings showed that the color perception of the human brain was
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

performed due to the activation of subunits embedded in the occipital region ( i.e. lingual and

fusiform gyri)[55] while further processing was performed in the left temporal, frontal and

posterior parietal cortices [56]colorcolor. In this way, since the interconnection activity of

frontal and parietal lobes is critical for the decision- making process, and the color processing

and decision-making processes are mainly performed in frontal and parietal regions of the

brain, the effect of color processing in the same brain regions might be responsible on the

PT
subject’s decision change. However, it should be noted that the functions which are

RI
originated from a specific brain region might be uncorrelated, there are references which

SC
show the correlation between anatomical and functional correlation (for example [57, 58]). In

this regard, further studies are demanded.

NU
MA

2. Limitation of study and future works

ED

In the present study, the application of EEG power for distinguishing between consumer’s

preferences was investigated. The results showed that however EEG power was different
T

when participants made a decision on the product compared with the neutral condition, in
EP

order to obtain better separation between preferences, other features like entropy [10] and
C

fractal [59] and also the combined methods [60] worth to be tested for searching more
AC

potent features. Also, since the selected sample of participants for this study was highly

selective according to the age, social status and income, increasing the sample size

containing the subjects with different characteristic might help to investigate the special

effect of each factor on consumer’s preferences. Finally, due to the volume conduction

effect in EEG, it is difficult to obtain the exact relationship between EEG characteristics

of specific brain region and behavior or cognitive functioning. Especially, the change of

EEG frequency content might be due to different brain processes or each specific brain
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

function might change the frequency content of EEG in more than one frequency band.

However, the inexpensive EEG studies regarding the relation between EEG frequency

content and brain cognitive process can be used for the proposal of new hypothesis which

should be tested with more accurate studies using, for example, fMRI studies.

In the feature work, in order to generalize the obtained results, the bigger sample size, the

PT
increased number of categories and new feature set will be used. Furthermore, the color

which was used in this study as background color was orange. However, in the future

RI
work, the effect of other colors on the decision-making process will be considered.

SC
NU
3. Conclusion
MA

In this study, it has been investigated whether the EEG power spectrum features can be used

for prediction of consumer preferences and the incidence of decision-making. The result
ED

shows the benefits of EEG for such purpose. Using the EEG, the incidence of a decision

about the product (i.e. “Like”, “Dislike” or “Buy”) can be predicted with high accuracy
T

(>87%), while prediction of “Like” and “Dislike” decisions is obtained with relatively lower
EP

accuracy (>63%). Also, the result shows that the power spectrum based extracted features are
C

not capable of predicting the decision of consumer for buying the liked items. In this regards,
AC

other feature sets should be proposed. Furthermore, our behavioral data analysis exhibits that

adding the background color to the advertisement might reduce the tendency of the

consumers to like the product, while EEG data analysis proposes the role of common regions

for color processing and decision making for such behavior. However, due to the small

sample size of this study, such claim should be studied more clearly. Also, the simultaneous

use of EEG and behavioral data suggests that the right parietal region of the brain is

responsible for the timing of decision making in a shopping task.

 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Our finding shows that the change of EEG power, especially in the centro-parietal and frontal

regions(Cp3, Cpz, and Fp1), can be used as a good candidate for predicting subject decision-

making. In this regard, using the minimal number of EEG recording sites according to our

finding could be used in future studies to decrease the voluntary response bias and developing

fully automated methods in neuromarketing strategies. Furthermore, to the best of our

knowledge, the research question of the present study, i.e. the effect of advertisement content

PT
on decision- making process using neural data, has been the focus of the limited number of

RI
studies, although it is a very important question in neuromarketing. The present work and the

SC
obtained results could be used as the starting point for analyzing the way that brain responds

to the advertisement contents and involved mechanisms, however, other data acquisition
NU
approaches such as fMRI and larger sample size might be used.
MA

Acknowledgment- The authors would like to thank the Institute for cognitive and brain
ED

sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran for handling data acquisition procedure

and also the neuroscience research center of Shahid Beheshti University of medical sciences,
T
EP

Tehran, Iran for helpful guidelines for interpretation of the obtained results.
C

References
AC

1. Weinschenk, S.M., Neuro web design: what makes them click? 2009: New Riders Publishing.
2. Nenycz-Thiel, M., et al., Investigating the accuracy of self-reports of brand usage behavior. J
Bus Res, 2013. 66(2): p. 224-232.
3. Christoforou, C., et al., From the eyes and the heart: a novel eye-gaze metric that predicts
video preferences of a large audience. Front Psychol, 2015. 6: p. 579.
4. Yadava, M., et al., Analysis of EEG signals and its application to neuromarketing. Multimed
Tools Appl, 2017. 76(18): p. 19087-19111.
5. dos Santos, R.d.O.J., et al., Eye tracking in neuromarketing: a research agenda for marketing
studies. Int J Psychol Stud, 2015. 7(1): p. 32.
6. Lewinski, P., M.L. Fransen, and E.S. Tan, Predicting advertising effectiveness by facial
expressions in response to amusing persuasive stimuli. J Neurosci Psychol Econ, 2014. 7(1):
p. 1.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

7. Ohira, H. and N. Hirao, Analysis of skin conductance response during evaluation of

preferences for cosmetic products. Front Psychol, 2015. 6: p. 103.
8. Bruce, A.S., et al., Branding and a child’s brain: an fMRI study of neural responses to logos.
Soc Cogn Affect Neur, 2014. 9(1): p. 118-122.
9. Telpaz, A., R. Webb, and D.J. Levy, Using EEG to predict consumers' future choices. J
Marketing Res, 2015. 52(4): p. 511-529.
10. Khushaba, R.N., et al., Choice modeling and the brain: A study on the Electroencephalogram
(EEG) of preferences. Expert Syst Appl, 2012. 39(16): p. 12378-12388.
11. Baldo, D., et al., Brain waves predict success of new fashion products: A practical
application for the footwear retailing industry. J Creat Value, 2015. 1(1): p. 61-71.
12. Murugappan, M., S. Murugappan, and C. Gerard. Wireless EEG signals based
neuromarketing system using Fast Fourier Transform (FFT). in Signal Processing & its

PT
Applications (CSPA), 2014 IEEE 10th International Colloquium on. 2014. IEEE.
13. Soleymani, M., et al., Analysis of EEG signals and facial expressions for continuous emotion
detection. IEEE Trans Affect Comput, 2016. 7(1): p. 17-28.

RI
14. Kawasaki, M. and Y. Yamaguchi, Effects of subjective preference of colors on attention-
related occipital theta oscillations. Neuroimage, 2012. 59(1): p. 808-814.
15. Yılmaz, B., et al., Like/dislike analysis using EEG: determination of most discriminative

SC
channels and frequencies. Comput Meth Prog Bio, 2014. 113(2): p. 705-713.
16. Lee, E.-J., Empathy can increase customer equity related to pro-social brands. J Bus Res,
2016. 69(9): p. 3748-3754.
17. Jin, J., W. Zhang, and M. Chen, How consumers are affected by product descriptions in
NU
online shopping: Event-related potentials evidence of the attribute framing effect. Neurosci
Res, 2017. 125: p. 21-28.
18. Ma, Q., et al., The influence of negative emotion on brand extension as reflected by the
MA

change of N2: A preliminary study. Neurosci Lett, 2010. 485(3): p. 237-240.

19. Ohme, R., et al., Application of frontal EEG asymmetry to advertising research. J Econ
Psychol, 2010. 31(5): p. 785-793.
20. Vecchiato, G., et al., Spectral EEG frontal asymmetries correlate with the experienced
pleasantness of TV commercial advertisements. Med Biol Eng Comput, 2011. 49(5): p. 579-
ED

83.
21. Chai, J., et al. Application of Frontal EEG Asymmetry to User Experience Research. in
International conference on engineering psychology and cognitive ergonomics. 2014. Cham:
T

Springer International Publishing.

22. Touchette, B. and S.-E. Lee, Measuring neural responses to apparel product attractiveness:
EP

an application of frontal asymmetry theory. Cloth Text Res J, 2017. 35(1): p. 3-15.
23. Ramsøy, T.Z., et al., Frontal Brain Asymmetry and Willingness to Pay. Front Neurosci, 2018.
12: p. 138-138.
C

24. Barraclough, D.J., M.L. Conroy, and D. Lee, Prefrontal cortex and decision making in a
mixed-strategy game. Nature neurosci, 2004. 7(4): p. 404.
AC

25. Philiastides, M.G., et al., Causal role of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in human perceptual
decision making. Curr Biol, 2011. 21(11): p. 980-3.
26. Heekeren, H.R., et al., A general mechanism for perceptual decision-making in the human
brain. Nature, 2004. 431(7010): p. 859.
27. Daw, N.D., et al., Cortical substrates for exploratory decisions in humans. Nature, 2006.
441(7095): p. 876.
28. McClure, S.M., et al., Neural correlates of behavioral preference for culturally familiar
drinks. Neuron, 2004. 44(2): p. 379-387.
29. Richardson, R.T., T.L. Drexler, and D.M. Delparte, Color and contrast in E-Learning design:
A review of the literature and recommendations for instructional designers and web
developers. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 2014. 10(4): p. 657-670.
30. Harper, S., E. Michailidou, and R. Stevens, Toward a definition of visual complexity as an
implicit measure of cognitive load. ACM Trans Appl Percept, 2009. 6(2): p. 10.
31. Dewitte, S., et al., Cognitive load has negative after effects on consumer decision making, in
North American conference of the association for consumer research. 2005.
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

32. Lichtlé, M.-C., The effect of an advertisement’s colour on emotions evoked by attitude
towards the ad: The moderating role of the optimal stimulation level. Int J Advert, 2007.
26(1): p. 37-62.
33. Cimbalo, R.S., K.L. Beck, and D.S. Sendziak, Emotionally toned pictures and color selection
for children and college students. J Genet Psychol, 1978. 133(2): p. 303-304.
34. Kotler, P., Atmospherics as a marketing tool. J Retailing, 1973. 49(4): p. 48-64.
35. Ma, M.-Y., C.-Y. Chen, and F.-G. Wu, A design decision-making support model for
customized product color combination. Comput Ind, 2007. 58(6): p. 504-518.
36. Wu, F.-G., et al., Effects of color sample display and color sample grouping on screen layout
usability for customized product color selection. Comput Hum Behav, 2010. 26(1): p. 51-60.
37. Hall, R.H. and P. Hanna, The impact of web page text-background colour combinations on
readability, retention, aesthetics and behavioural intention. Behav Inform Technol, 2004.

PT
23(3): p. 183-195.
38. Bagchi, R. and A. Cheema, The effect of red background color on willingness-to-pay: The
moderating role of selling mechanism. j Consum Res, 2012. 39(5): p. 947-960.

RI
39. Chan, C.R. and H.D. Park, How images and color in business plans influence venture
investment screening decisions. J Bus Res, 2015. 30(5): p. 732-748.
40. Javed, S.A. and S. Javed, The impact of product's packaging color on customers' buying

SC
preferences under time pressure. Marketing and Branding Research, 2015. 2(1): p. 4.
41. Tantanatewin, W. and V. Inkarojrit, Effects of color and lighting on retail impression and
identity. J Environ Psychol, 2016. 46: p. 197-205.
42. Patil, D., Coloring consumer's psychology using different shades the role of perception of
NU
colors by consumers in consumer decision making process: A micro study of select
departmental stores in Mumbai city, India. 2012.
43. Boser, B.E., I.M. Guyon, and V.N. Vapnik. A training algorithm for optimal margin
MA

classifiers. in Proceedings of the fifth annual workshop on Computational learning theory.

1992. ACM.
44. Cohen, P., S.G. West, and L.S. Aiken, Applied multiple regression/correlation analysis for
the behavioral sciences. 2014: Psychology Press.
45. Parikh, R., et al., Understanding and using sensitivity, specificity and predictive values.
ED

Indian J Ophthalmol, 2008. 56(1): p. 45-50.

46. Avinash, T., L. Dikshant, and S. Seema, Methods of Neuromarketing and Implication of the
Frontal Theta Asymmetry induced due to musical stimulus as choice modeling. Procedia
T

Comput Sci, 2018. 132: p. 55-67.

47. Larsen, T. and J.P. O'Doherty, Uncovering the spatio-temporal dynamics of value-based
EP

decision-making in the human brain: a combined fMRI–EEG study. Philos T R Soc B, 2014.
369(1655): p. 20130473.
48. Andersen, R.A. and H. Cui, Intention, Action Planning, and Decision Making in Parietal-
C

Frontal Circuits. Neuron, 2009. 63(5): p. 568-583.

49. Pereira, C.S., et al., Music and Emotions in the Brain: Familiarity Matters. PLoS One, 2011.
AC

6(11): p. e27241.
50. Jin, Y., et al., Alpha EEG predicts visual reaction time. Int J Neurosci, 2006. 116(9): p. 1035-
1044.
51. Richard Clark, C., et al., Spontaneous alpha peak frequency predicts working memory
performance across the age span. Int J Psychophysiol, 2004. 53(1): p. 1-9.
52. Benedek, M., et al., Alpha power increases in right parietal cortex reflects focused internal
attention. Neuropsychologia, 2014. 56: p. 393-400.
53. Scholz, S., S.L. Schneider, and M. Rose, Differential effects of ongoing EEG beta and theta
power on memory formation. PLoS One, 2017. 12(2): p. e0171913.
54. Güntekin, B., et al., Beta oscillatory responses in healthy subjects and subjects with mild
cognitive impairment. Neuroimage Clin, 2013. 3: p. 39-46.
55. Allison, T., et al., Electrophysiological studies of color processing in human visual cortex.
Electroencephalogr Clin Neurophysiol, 1993. 88(5): p. 343-55.
56. Rakshit, A. and R. Lahiri. Discriminating different color from EEG signals using Interval-
Type 2 fuzzy space classifier (a neuro-marketing study on the effect of color to cognitive
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

state). in 2016 IEEE 1st International Conference on Power Electronics, Intelligent Control
and Energy Systems (ICPEICES). 2016.
57. Shen, K., et al., Stable long-range interhemispheric coordination is supported by direct
anatomical projections. Proc Natl Acad Sci U.S.A, 2015. 112(20): p. 6473-6478.
58. Wang, Z., et al., The relationship of anatomical and functional connectivity to resting-state
connectivity in primate somatosensory cortex. Neuron, 2013. 78(6): p. 1116-1126.
59. Liu, Y., O. Sourina, and M.K. Nguyen. Real-time EEG-based human emotion recognition and
visualization. in 2010 international conference on cyberworlds. 2010. IEEE.
60. Farashi, S., et al. Combination of PCA and undecimated wavelet transform for neural data
processing. in 2010 Annual Conf Proc IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2010. IEEE.

PT
RI
SC
NU
MA
T ED
C EP
AC
 ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT

Highlights

 The power of the EEG data was used for finding the most important brain regions for
distinguishing between preferences and also the interpretation of participant behaviour.
 results showed that adding the background colour to the designed advertisement
had a negative impact on the interest of liking the product.
 Obtained results showed that the extracted features from EEG power could
predict consumer’s decision making incidence with relatively high accuracy
(>87%) and distinguished between “Like” and “Dislike” preferences

PT
RI
SC
NU
MA
T ED
C EP
AC