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Effect of
Effect of emotion induction emotion
on potential consumers’ induction

visual attention in beer

advertisements: a
neuroscience study Received 23 June 2021
Revised 2 March 2022
9 September 2022
André Luiz Damião de Paula, Marina Lourenção, 20 September 2022
Accepted 2 October 2022
Janaina de Moura Engracia Giraldi and
Jorge Henrique Caldeira de Oliveira
Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics, Business and
Accountancy of Ribeirão Preto, University of São Paulo, Ribeirão Preto, Brazil

Abstract
Purpose – The study aims to evaluate the effect of inducing emotions (neutral, joy and fear) on the level of
visual attention in beer advertisements.
Design/methodology/approach – A between-subject experimental study with a multi-method design was
carried out using three neuroscience equipment concomitantly. The electroencephalogram and the electrical conductance
sensor on the skin were used to assess the emotions induced in the individuals, while eye-tracking was used to assess the
visual attention to beer advertisements. Three independent groups were formed. Each group was induced to one emotion
(neutral, joy or fear), and then the level of visual attention was observed in ten stimuli of beer advertisements.
Findings – The results revealed that the induction of joy increased the visual attention to the brand name,
while the induction of fear increased the visual attention to both the brand name and product packaging but
reduced the visual attention to human faces within the ads.
Research limitations/implications – This paper extends the literature, and to the best of the authors’
knowledge, it is the first study to indicate that induced emotions before ad viewing influence potential
consumers’ visual attention.
Practical implications – The findings can serve as a basis for developing advertising campaigns that
use emotion induction before ad viewing to increase the visual attention of potential consumers.
Originality/value – To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate whether the
emotion induction that happens before ad viewing can impact the level of visual attention to advertisements. The study
also provides clear and comprehensible implications from marketing practices to improve visual attention to ads.
Keywords Eye-tracking, Electroencephalogram, Electrical conductance sensor,
Induction of emotion, Visual attention
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Emotions constitute potent drivers of action tendencies (Lerner et al., 2015). Some studies found
evidence that feeling positive emotions during ad exposure might positively influence viewer

This work was supported by Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel European Journal of Marketing
(CAPES–Brazil), National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq-Brazil) and © Emerald Publishing Limited
0309-0566
São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP, Brazil). DOI 10.1108/EJM-06-2021-0448
EJM attention (Breuer et al., 2021; Teixeira et al., 2012). On the other hand, individuals feeling fear
during ad exposure spend less time looking at specific image areas (Yang and Li, 2013).
Nevertheless, it is essential to consider that ads are always presented in context (Herold et al.,
2021), and how they are processed could be largely influenced by the individual’s emotional
context, not only during ads presentation (Breuer et al., 2021) but also before it. For example,
displaying advertising stimuli immediately after a newscast with potentially fear-eliciting
content might influence the visual attention to the brands in advertisements.
In this sense, it would be valuable to evaluate not only the influence of emotions felt
during ad exposure (Breuer et al., 2021; Teixeira et al., 2012) but also the ones felt before it.
However, as far as it was possible to verify, no study investigated whether the experimental
induction of emotions previous to the ad viewing would affect visual attention to the ads.
Given this, the following research problem was elaborated: is the induction of emotions
(neutral, joy and fear) before the ad viewing capable of influencing the level of visual attention
to beer advertisements? To answer this question, the study’s main objective is to assess the
effect of emotion induction (neutral, joy and fear) before the ad viewing on the level of visual
attention in beer ads. However, to verify whether the emotions studied were actually induced in
the participants, it was also necessary to achieve two secondary objectives, namely, to verify
whether the induction of emotions has effects on the activity of the central nervous system, to
verify if the induction of emotions had effects on the activity of the peripheral nervous system.
The electroencephalography (EEG), an instrument capable of measuring the activity of
the cerebral cortex (Christoforou et al., 2017), was used to verify whether the induction of
emotions affects the activity of the central nervous system. Besides, to measure the impact
of inducing emotions on the activity of the peripheral nervous system, the recording of the
level of electrical conductance response (ECR) in the skin was used, also known by the
acronym (GSR), which means galvanic skin response, which allows verifying changes in
the activity of the sympathetic autonomic nervous system (Ohira and Hirao, 2015). The data
from EEG and GSR were obtained during the experimental induction of emotions (neutral,
joy and fear). Finally, eye-tracking equipment was used during the visualization of beer
advertisements to check the level of visual attention (Muñoz-Leiva et al., 2019).
Neuromarketing studies have been developed to understand consumers’ responses to
communication through different equipment (Lee et al., 2018), which contribute to
understanding consumers’ unconscious reactions and emotional processes, complementing
traditional research methods (Lee et al., 2018).
The present research is the first to investigate whether the emotions induction through
static visual stimuli before the ad viewing can impact the level of visual attention to beer
advertisements, contributing to extending the literature. According to Lerner et al. (2015),
increasing knowledge of how emotion influences others’ decisions also raises the possibility of
strategic display of emotional expression. Thus, if the induction of a given emotion before ad
viewing can increase the level of visual attention, we may have found a strategy to increase the
capture of visual attention in advertisements, contributing to reducing ad avoidance, which is a
huge concern for advertisers (Seyedghorban et al., 2016; Teixeira et al., 2012).

2. Literature review
2.1 Induction of emotions
Gazzaniga et al. (2018, p. 404) state, “emotion is an immediate negative or positive response,
specific to environmental events or internal thoughts.” Basic emotions are innate emotions
installed in the brain by biological evolution and shared by human beings from all cultures
(Ekman, 2017; Tooby and Cosmides, 2015). The basic emotions are joy, fear, anger, disgust,
surprise and sadness (Ekman, 1972). Experimental induction of basic emotions is a research
method with a long tradition in psychology, with scientific reports dating from 1953 until Effect of
the present day (Aguiar-Bloemer et al., 2021; Easterbrook, 1959). emotion
The display of static visual stimuli is a method widely used to induce the emotion of joy
and fear in experimental conditions (Geissmann et al., 2018; Xu et al., 2021). In most studies,
induction
the visual stimuli capable of inducing these emotions are taken from the International
Affective Picture System (IAPS – Lang et al., 2008) or validated databases containing
human faces expressing joy (Ebner et al., 2010).
Specific emotions carry specific action tendencies and influence decision-making (Lerner
et al., 2015). Lench et al. (2011) showed that joy induction increased the subjective feeling of
joy and produced physiological responses. Research in the field shows that inducing joy
through static visual stimuli produces a response in the zygomatic muscle, breathing, heart
rate, blood pressure and electrical conductance level in the skin (Cameron and Overall, 2018;
Qiao-Tasserit et al., 2018).
Inducing fear is also effective through static visual stimuli (Cabral et al., 2018; Xu et al.,
2021). Studies show that fear induction changes physiological parameters, such as an
increase in the level of electrical conductance in the skin and increased blood pressure, heart
and respiratory rate (Comtesse and Stemmler, 2017).

2.2 The effect of emotion induction on visual attention

Visual attention is the process by which a person selects a specific element from all available
information to examine further (Skaramagkas et al., 2021). The literature indicates that the
induction of emotions can influence individuals’ visual attention (Martinez-Levy et al., 2021),
and this phenomenon is reported in studies in several areas. For instance, the study by
Naumann et al. (2019) investigated the effect of inducing positive and negative emotions on
visual attention in the body in patients with Bulimia. The results revealed that joy induction
decreased visual attention to body parts that the participants found less attractive. On the
other hand, the induction of sadness increased visual attention to body regions in which the
participants focused their concern on form and aesthetics.
Considering a different context, Biele et al. (2013) indicated that the participants induced
to joy showed a higher level of visual attention to the paintings. Accordingly, Scrimin and
Mason (2015) indicate that participants who were induced to positive emotion exhibited a
higher level of visual attention to scientific texts than participants induced to negative and
neutral affect. In addition, participants induced to positive emotion exhibited a better
understanding of the article, suggesting a positive correlation between visual attention and
textual understanding.
Regarding different emotions inductions, Ferrer et al. (2016) aimed to check the level of
visual attention in participants induced to fear, anger and sadness for an informed consent
term, informing the participants about the risks involved in a scientific procedure. The
results showed that fear-induced participants had a prolonged visual fixation on the
document’s information, while anger-induced participants showed a shorter fixation time.
The studies above investigated the possible effects of inducing emotions on visual
attention using eye-tracking measures. The available evidence shows that the induction
of emotions affects eye movements and, consequently, the level of visual attention. The
level of visual attention has been studied for advertisements in various sectors such as
tourism (Lourenção et al., 2020), sports (Breuer and Rumpf, 2015), brands of wine (Pieran ski
et al., 2017) and in studies that seek to understand consumption decision-making
(Grebitus and Davis, 2017; van der Laan et al., 2015). Thus, it is seen that there is a growing
effort of studies that try to understand how advertisements capture the visual attention of
individuals (Lourenção et al., 2020; Venkatraman et al., 2015).
EJM In this context, it is seen that emotions can also impact visual attention to ads (Breuer
et al., 2021; Martinez-Levy et al., 2021). Breuer et al. (2021) indicate that viewers’ emotions
during live broadcast games can influence visual attention to the sponsors’ messages
exposed, and Martinez-Levy et al. (2021) found that the induction of empathy through
images showing the reality of war within the ads increases visual attention to nonprofit
advertising and donations. However, no studies have been found that investigate the effect
of emotion induction previous to the ads’ viewing on visual attention to them.
It is seen that the induction of emotions changes the way we make decisions (You et al.,
2019), make judgments (Landy and Goodwin, 2015) and perceive reality (Lawrie et al., 2019).
It is also known that emotions generated during advertisement viewing play a central role in
visual attention to them (Breuer et al., 2021; Martinez-Levy et al., 2021; Poels and Dewitte,
2019). Thus, it is plausible to investigate whether the induction of emotions previous to the
viewing of the ad can also influence visual attention to them, which is one of the objectives
of the present study.

3. Research hypothesis
Specific emotions can lead to specific action tendencies (Lerner et al., 2015). Accordingly,
positive/negative emotions might influence the willingness or interest to buy a product and,
consequently, improve the visual attention to the advertisement’s elements (i.e. brand name
and product packaging), as the individuals’ interest in the advertisement increases their
visual attention toward it (Wedel and Pieters, 2008). In this sense, some studies found
evidence that the feeling of joy during ad exposure increases viewers’ visual attention. For
example, Teixeira et al. (2012) indicate that both joy and surprise led to a concentration of
attention, reflecting the visual attention-gaining power of advertisements at those moments.
In the same vein, the study by Breuer et al. (2021) indicates that in a live broadcast game,
low-to-moderate arousal and neutral-to-positive emotional states felt by the viewers during
sponsors’ message exposure are most likely to maximize visual attention to them.
These studies evaluate the visual attention to ads while feeling positive emotions.
Nevertheless, it is still unknown whether the feeling of a positive emotion that does not
occur simultaneously with ads exposure, but previous to it, can influence visual attention
toward them. Some studies analyze the induction of emotions before viewing objects but not
advertisements. In this sense, Biele et al. (2013) indicate that the participants who saw
paintings after being induced to joy have a higher visual attention level. Scrimin and Mason
(2015) pointed out that the participants previously induced to positive affect have higher
visual attention and understanding of the article. Thus, these previous studies suggest that
the induction of joy before the ads’ viewing might increase visual attention toward the
advertisement’s elements, as indicated:

H1. The induction of joy previously to ad viewing increases visual attention to beer
advertisement’s elements.
H1a. The induction of joy previously to ad viewing increases the total visit duration to
the brand name in beer advertisements.
H1b. The induction of joy previously to ad viewing increases the total visit duration to
the product packaging in beer advertisements.
Emotions can be grouped according to the two basic motivational systems of approach
and avoidance. Negative emotions such as anxiety and fear reflect an active
avoidance system, and positive emotions such as excitement and happiness reflect an
active approach system (Brookshire and Casasanto, 2018; Carver and Harmon-Jones, 2009;
Kelley et al., 2017; Spielberg et al., 2012). Accordingly, positive emotions are more likely to Effect of
produce an approach behavior, and negative emotions encourage avoidance (Hwang and emotion
Lee, 2022).
Accordingly, the literature also suggests that negative emotions might increase visual
induction
attention for different reasons. First, negative emotions might increase the concern about
decision-making because, by being avoidance-oriented, they contribute to preventing the
individual from experiencing negative emotions (Kelley et al., 2017). Thus, in the context of
shopping, consumers feeling negative emotions are more worried about reducing decision-
making risks (Hwang and Lee, 2022). Hwang and Lee (2022) found that negative emotions
participants paid more visual attention to online shopping than positive emotions participants
once they were more concerned about their decision-making, which led to more visual attention.
In the same vein, it might be possible that fear-induced participants, when exposed to beer ads,
are more concerned about reducing decision-making risks of whether to buy or not the product
and also increases visual attention to the product packaging and logo.
The second reason is that the induction of emotions might increase visual attention to
hedonic products. Previous studies have indicated that the responses to product type
(hedonic vs utilitarian) might be influenced by consumers’ emotions (Motoki et al., 2019).
Hedonic products are desirable goods characterized by sensory gratification and affective
experience (Cervellon and Carey, 2014). For instance, Motoki et al. (2019) show that anxiety
(negative valence) increases visual attention to hedonic foods. Thus, considering that fear
is another negative valence emotion that also encourages avoidance behavior, it might be
possible that fear-induced participants, when exposed to beer ads – characterized as a
hedonic drink (Hinojosa-Aguayo et al., 2022; Jaeger et al., 2019) – have higher visual
attention to the beer package and logo:

H2. The induction of fear previously to ad viewing increases visual attention to beer
advertisement’s elements.
H2a. The induction of fear previously to ad viewing increases the total visit duration to
the brand name in beer advertisements.
H2b. The induction of fear previously to ad viewing increases the total visit duration to
the product packaging in beer advertisements.
According to a recent study by Wooley et al. (2022), visual branding will be relevant during
advertising viewing and will attract visual attention. This phenomenon might occur once
when seeing ads, the consumers have the task of assessing the relevance of the advertised
product or brand, which contributes to attracting visual attention to visual branding
presence (either name, logo, typeface, trademark or pack shot) (Wooley et al., 2022). Thus,
knowing that visual attention is the process by which a person prioritizes a specific element
from all available information to examine further (Skaramagkas et al., 2021) if the induction
of emotions can contribute to prioritizing and increase visual attention to motivationally
relevant information into hedonic product ads (Motoki et al., 2019) (which in this study are
the beer logo and package into beer ads), the induction of these same emotions might
decrease the visual attention to nonmotivationally relevant information inside the ads
(which in this study are the human faces into beer advertisements), as indicated:

H3. The induction of joy previously to ad viewing decreases the total visit duration to
the human faces in beer advertisements.
EJM H4. The induction of fear previously to ad viewing decreases the total visit duration to
the human faces in beer advertisements.

4. Method
4.1 Research design and stimulus construction
The research objective was achieved by conducting an experimental study with a multi-
method design. The electroencephalogram and the electrical conductance sensor on the skin
were used to assess the emotions induced in the individuals, contributing to checking the
validity of the manipulated experimental factors. Eye-tracking was used to assess the visual
attention to beer advertisements. Combining eye-tracking with other methods is encouraged
to understand the patterns revealed in experiments (Lee et al., 2018; Li et al., 2020).
The experiment has a between-subjects design; that is, every participant experiences
only one condition. We carried out the experiment using three different groups, with the
members of each group being induced to a single emotion (neutral, joy or fear), and then, the
participants of all groups visualized the same beer advertising stimuli. The between-
subjects design was chosen for two reasons. First, to minimize a general concern with
emotion induction designs, which is the carry-over effect, that is, the chance of previous
emotion induction affects another following experimental condition (Stanton et al., 2014),
once emotional induction usually takes time and needs to remain relatively stable (Xu et al.,
2021). By reducing the carry-over effect, the participants can focus on one induced emotion
felt (Gabrielsson, 2001). The second reason is to avoid the practice effect, in order words, to
avoid the research interest manipulation becoming evident to the participants and affecting
their behavior (Viglia and Dolnicar, 2020).
Besides, participants with similar characteristics (education, age and income) were
selected to contribute to this study and randomly assigned to each group. These procedures
minimize one disadvantage of the between-subjects design: the possible variation between
participants once it can be argued that the variation among responses is due to individual
differences (Viglia and Dolnicar, 2020).
4.1.1 Stimuli of emotion. To generate the desired emotional induction, Faces-Database
was used. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute developed this instrument between
2005 and 2007, and the validation study was published in 2010 (Ebner et al., 2010). Faces-
Database consists of an individual’s photo set expressing different emotions, as viewing
images of people displaying emotions through facial expressions is sufficient to induce the
emotion that was visualized (De Carli et al., 2017).
Twenty photos of individuals expressing joy, fear and neutrality were selected. The
choice of photographs used to generate the desired emotional induction was based on
the following criteria: photos of young individuals because the sample of this study was
made up of young people and individuals tend to more easily perceive the emotional facial
expressions of people of the same age (Bäckman, 1991; Lamont et al., 2005); to avoid gender
bias, half of the selected photographs are of men and half of women.
4.1.2 Stimuli of advertisement. Ten static stimuli were selected with real advertisements
for beer of the same brand. The stimuli had their dimensions standardized at 16  18
centimeters and resolution at 800  708 pixels. To avoid possible ethical and/or legal
infractions, the name of the beer brand whose advertisements were used in this study will
not be informed. However, this beer brand connects consistently with young people, and it
has attributes that combine high brand value with emotional factors (Kantar Consulting for
Latin America, 2018), which justifies the use of advertisements for this brand in this study,
considering that the sample has consisted of young people, that is, potential consumers of Effect of
this brand. emotion
induction
4.2 Sample and data collection
The sample comprised 60 people divided into three groups with 20 individuals each. The
groups were matched for gender, age, education and income, to avoid significant differences
between groups in these demographic variables. The allocation of participants to the groups
was made at random.
The present study has a statistical power of 60%, as indicated by the power analysis
made through the G*power program. Although it is not high statistical power, it is above
the median statistical power of neuroscience studies, reported as 21% by Nord et al. (2017)
and between 8% and 31% by Button et al. (2013).
Due to cost and time considerations, mainly for studies using several types of equipment,
neuroscience studies typically deal with low sample sizes and are not intended to be
representative (Button et al., 2013; Martinez-Levy et al., 2021; Muñoz-Leiva et al., 2019; Nord
et al., 2017). The sample size of the present study was similar to what was practiced in
similar neuroscience experimental studies (Esch et al., 2012; Gordon et al., 2018) and larger
than most of the research studies pointed out in a review of eye-tracking studies presented
by Scott et al. (2019). The inclusion criteria adopted for selecting participants were as
follows: healthy individuals over 18 years, of both genders, right-handed and native
speakers of Portuguese.
The population consisted of undergraduate and graduate students from a public
university in Brazil. It is valuable to analyze Brazilian consumers’ responses to
advertisements once Brazil is an emerging market that has drawn attention and investment
from multinationals around the globe, and it has the third-largest market for beer (Gouvea
et al., 2018).
This population’s choice is based on the fact that this university has the equipment used
for data collection. Due to the laboratory character of the experiment and the need to control
environmental conditions, it is not possible to transport the equipment to other places where
individuals representing the general population could be selected. However, several studies
on marketing that use neuroscience equipment have students as samples (Baumgartner
et al., 2018; Clement et al., 2017; Lourenção et al., 2020; Pozharliev et al., 2015). Besides, young
people have been considered potential consumers of the beer brand studied (Kantar
Consulting for Latin America, 2018). Therefore, the sample’s composition was carried out for
convenience and did not follow probabilistic procedures (Sampieri et al., 2013).

4.3 Experimental procedures

Concerning experimental procedures, 20 stimuli of emotional induction were used for each of
the three emotions (neutral, joy and fear) and ten stimuli of beer advertising. Each of the
three groups was induced with a single emotion, and the members of all groups observed the
same advertising stimuli.
Each of the 60 participants visualized 30 stimuli, of which 20 were emotionally inducing
stimuli, ten faces of men and ten faces of women, expressing neutrality, joy or fear,
according to the group in which the participant was inserted and ten stimuli of beer
advertising. Thus, the only difference between the groups was the emotion they were
induced to, so this is the independent variable which is supposed to affect the level of visual
attention in beer advertisements. The participants viewed one stimulus at a time. The
stimuli display order and an advertisement stimulus example are shown in Figure 1.
EJM

Figure 1.
Order of the display
of stimuli and
advertisement
stimulus example

The advertising stimulus shown above had its resolution purposely reduced, but it was in
high resolution at the time of data collection. Both faces and advertising stimuli have the
same size and remain visible for the same time (8 s), as suggested by Xu et al. ( 2021). After
each ad, the stimuli move on to the following two faces again. Throughout the experiment,
the emotional induction (through EEG and electrical conductance in the skin) and the level
of visual attention (through eye-tracking) were measured. However, the physiological
responses (emotions induction) data were only analyzed for the period corresponding to the
face viewing (i.e. previous to the ads). The visual attention was only evaluated during the
ads viewing to achieve the proposed objective of the present study. The physiological
responses to the faces and the visual attention to ads were reliably separated based on the
timing because the software indicates the exact moment when the ads appear.

4.4 Equipment and measures

During the data collection, each participant used these three types of equipment:
(1) Electroencephalogram: to assess the induced emotions; it used the EEG Epoc-
Emotiv equipment and two measures were analyzed:
 Mean spectral power (MSP): measured in microvolts-squared (µV2), in the beta
frequency range (14–30 Hz), frontal lobe (electrodes AF3, AF4, F3, F4, F7 and
F8). The beta wave is highly associated with processing emotional stimuli
(Güntekin and Bas ar, 2007, 2009; Miskovic and Schmidt, 2010; Woodruff et al.,
2011). It is seen that there is an increase in the response of the beta wave in
individuals who saw human faces expressing anger (Güntekin and Basar,
2007). Greater activity of the beta wave was also observed for images with
positive and negative emotional content compared to neutral images (Güntekin
and Bas ar, 2009; Woodruff et al., 2011).
 Frontal asymmetry index (FAI): measured in microvolts (µV), in the alpha
frequency range (8–13 Hz; electrodes AF4 and AF3). The different levels of
power in the alpha wave characterize the frontal asymmetry, constituting a
robust index to the approximation or avoidance of a stimulus (Kelley et al.,
2017). Thus, beneficial stimuli are associated with positive emotions, increase
the left cerebral hemisphere activity and produce an approximation behavioral
response (Gartstein et al., 2020). The stimuli interpreted as bad are related to
 negative emotions and the reduction in the right cerebral hemisphere (higher Effect of
level of alpha power), generating the avoidance response (Kelley et al., 2017). emotion
(2) Electrical conductance sensor on the skin: it analyzed the measure:
induction
 Skin ECR: measured in micro-Siemens (µS) using two electrodes that are
attached to the tip of two fingers. The sensor works with a pickup frequency
of 10 Hertz. The level of electrical conductance in the skin is an indirect
measure of emotional activation because the sympathetic autonomic nervous
system reacts to the presence of emotional stimuli (positive or negative),
triggering a series of physiological responses to prepare the body to deal
with the presence of potential threats or rewards in the environment
(Kozlowska et al., 2015). The release of sweat is one of these physiological
reactions that occur when processing emotional stimuli (Troy et al., 2018),
and water is a great electricity conductor (Kumar, 2004). Therefore, increased
sweat on the skin surface increases the electrical conductance in the skin.
Thus, the emotional induction by human faces in photographs might increase
the level of electrical conductance in the skin.
(3) Eye-tracker: it was used to measure the visual attention toward beer
advertisements. The eye-tracking equipment used is the Tobii Eye-Tracker, model
X1L. It was analyzed the metric: Total visit duration (TVD): total duration (in
seconds) in which each participant kept his/her eyes on an areas of interest group
(AIG) (brand, product, face). This measure was chosen to be analyzed because it is
considered a great measure of visual attention (Breuer et al., 2021; Skaramagkas
et al., 2021); once it suggests the tendency to focus on a specific target (Liu et al.,
2016), greater relevance (Tsai et al., 2012) and recall (Muñoz-Leiva et al., 2021).
Besides, the visit duration indicates that the viewer did not only notice the ads’
elements and looked away (Lourenção et al., 2020; Muñoz-Leiva et al., 2019), which
might suggest ad avoidance (Muñoz-Leiva et al., 2019; Teixeira et al., 2012).

4.5 Data analysis

The demographic data (age, education and income) of the different groups were tested for
their distribution using the Shapiro–Wilk and Kolgomorov–Smirnov tests, which showed
normal distribution. As a result, demographic data were analyzed using the analysis of
variance (ANOVA). ANOVA did not find significant differences between groups in these
demographic variables.
The data from eye-tracking, EEG (spectral analysis and frontal asymmetry) and
electrical conductance in the skin were analyzed using ANOVA, as it allowed to verify the
effect of the independent variable (induction of emotions) on the dependent variables (five
metrics of eye-tracking). Post hoc tests (Bonferroni) were performed for cases where the
factorial ANOVA showed significant differences between the groups.
The homogeneity of the variance was not tested because the three groups were composed
of the same number of participants, and the degrees of freedom was greater than 20 in all
conditions analyzed. When these characteristics are present, ANOVA is robust enough to
deal with possible violations of variance homogeneity (Field, 2011). The tables display
descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation and confidence intervals).

5. Results
All participants were Brazilian, healthy individuals over 18 and right-handed. The sample
was divided equally between the two sexes. The groups were paired by sex, age, education
EJM and income to avoid significant differences between groups in these demographic variables,
as shown in Table 1.
There were no significant differences in age F(2,57) = 1.107; p = 0.410, education F(2,57) =
1.527; p = 0.216 and income F(2,57) = 0.323; p = 0.985. This research aimed to investigate
whether the induction of incidental emotions would affect the level of visual attention in beer
advertisements. Therefore, it was necessary to verify whether the induction of emotions
successfully established possible cause-and-effect relationships between the induced
emotion and the level of visual attention in the stimuli of beer advertisements. Before
discussing the observed results on visual attention, we examined whether the emotions
intended to induce in the participants were, in fact, induced. This verification occurred in the
manipulation checks section, which analyzes the results of EEG and electrical conductance
in the skin.

5.1 Results of manipulation checks

This section presents the results from EEG (measures: MSP and FAI) and electrical
conductance in the skin (measure: ECR). These measures were used to confirm that the
subjects allocated to each condition (joy, neutral or fear) showed different responses. Thus,
to consider these measures as manipulation checks, it was essential to outset the differential
activation patterns expected for each measure concerning each of the three emotions, as
highlighted in Table 2.
Thus, Table 2 shows that although joy and fear lead to a greater level of ECR and MSP
than neutral conditions, they differ in FAI (joy – lower level, approach versus fear – higher
level, avoidance). The first variable of EEG analyzed is MSP. The MSP refers to the total

Age Education Income

Induced Sample In years In years In R$ BRL)/month
emotion (Men/Women) (6standard deviation) (6standard deviation) (6standard deviation)
Table 1. Neutral 20 (10/10) 22.15 (63.85) 13.60 (61.81) 6,425 (62357)
Sample Joy 20 (10/10) 24.55 (65.43) 13.80 (61.70) 6,525 (61780)
characteristics Fear 20 (10/10) 24.85 (66.31) 12.50 (61.70) 6,525 (61658)

Emotion Measures patterns

Joy Mean spectral power (MSP): higher number of microvolts-squared (µV2), increase in the response
of the beta wave (Güntekin and Basar, 2009; Woodruff et al., 2011)
Frontal asymmetry index (FAI): lower level of alpha power, measured in microvolts (µV),
generating the approximation response (Kelley et al., 2017)
Electrical conductance response (ECR): higher number of micro-Siemens (Kozlowska et al., 2015)
Fear Mean spectral power (MSP): higher number of microvolts-squared (µV2), increase in the response
of the beta wave (Güntekin and Basar, 2009; Woodruff et al., 2011)
Frontal asymmetry index (FAI): a higher level of Alpha power, measured in microvolts (µV),
generating the avoidance response (Kelley et al., 2017)
Electrical conductance response (ECR): higher number of micro-Siemens (Kozlowska et al., 2015)
Neutral Mean spectral power (MSP): lower number of microvolts-squared (µV2) (Güntekin and Basar,
Table 2. 2009; Woodruff et al., 2011)
Measures patterns to Frontal asymmetry index (FAI): level of Alpha power closer to zero, measured in microvolts (µV)
each emotion Electrical conductance response (ECR): lower number of micro-Siemens
mean observed in the set of 20 emotional induction stimuli in each condition (neutral, Effect of
joy and fear). The results indicate that the induction of emotions (neutral, joy and fear) emotion
influences the mean level of spectral power because significant differences were found
between the emotional induction stimuli: F(2,57) = 6.198; p = 0.004; o = 0.37. The
induction
difference is between the group induced to neutrality and the group induced to fear (p =
0.005) and between the group induced to neutrality and joy (p = 0.02). Both the
induction of joy and fear significantly increased the level of power in the beta wave
compared to the induction of neutrality.
The second variable is FAI, which refers to the total mean observed in the set of 20
emotionally induced stimuli in each condition (neutral, joy and fear). The results
indicate that the induction of emotions has an influence on the FAI because
significant differences were found between these emotional induction stimuli:
F( 2,57 ) = 19.623; p < 0.001; o = 0.61. The post hoc analysis showed that fear-induced
participants exhibit a higher rate of FAI than participants induced to neutrality (p <
0.001). Participants induced to joy exhibit a lower rate of frontal asymmetry than
participants induced to neutrality (p < 0.001). Thus, FAI allowed verifying that the
induced emotions lead to different physiological reactions, indicating that the
participants have actually been induced to fear, joy and neutrality.
Finally, the ECR was measured for the set of stimuli of emotional induction of each
condition (neutral, joy and fear). The ANOVA results indicate that the induction of emotions
influences the ECR because significant differences were found between the emotional
induction stimuli: F(2,57) = 23.031; p < 0.001; o = 0.64. The difference is between participants
induced to fear and neutrality (p < 0.001), fear and joy (p < 0.001) and joy and neutral
(p = 0.02). The ECR level was significantly higher for participants who viewed fear and joy
than neutral stimuli. The highest ECR level is fear. Figure 2 presents the manipulation
checks results.
Table 3 summarizes the EEG and ECR in the skin results. It informs the MSP, FAI and
ECR for the three groups that made up the sample. Therefore, the manipulation checks
indicated that the intended experimental factors were manipulated successfully.

5.2 Results of visual attention

Visual attention analysis occurred by the TVD. This metric was evaluated for three AIG:
brand name, product packaging and human faces within advertisements.
The ANOVA results show that the induction of emotions related to joy, neutral and fear
influences the TVD to the brand name because significant differences were observed
between the groups: F(2,57) = 18.025; p < 0.001; o = 0.63. The TVD was higher for the
emotion induced by joy than neutrality (Bonferroni post hoc: p < 0.001), supporting H1a.
Besides, the participants induced to fear also had significantly longer TVD on the brand
name (Bonferroni post hoc: p < 0.001), and H2a is confirmed [Figure 3(a)].
The induction of emotions related to joy, neutrality and fear influences TVD in the
product packaging once significant differences were observed between the groups: F(2,57) =
4.02; p = 0.02; o = 0.3. The TVD was not significantly higher for the joy-induced
participants (Bonferroni post hoc: p = 0.19), and H1b was not confirmed. However, fear-
induced participants had significantly higher TVD to the product packaging (Bonferroni
post hoc: p = 0.02); H2b was supported [Figure 3(b)].
Besides, the induction of emotions related to joy, neutral and fear has a significant
influence on the TVD to human faces: F(2,57) = 4.985; p = 0.01; o = 0.33. The TVD was
not significantly higher for neutral-induced participants than for joy (Bonferroni post hoc:
p = 0.499). Thus, H3 was not supported. However, the results indicate that viewers induced
EJM

Figure 2.
Relationship between
induced emotions and
MSP, FAI and ECR

to fear had significantly shorter TVD for the human faces (Bonferroni post hoc: p = 0.008).
Thus, H4 was supported. Figure 3(c) illustrates the effects of induced emotions on the TVD
for human faces.
Table 4 summarizes the results of the visual attention to the ads’ elements.
 Confidence interval*
Effect of
Induced emotion MSP** SD Inferior Superior F p-value emotion
induction
Neutral 2.02 1.67 1.23 2.80 6.198 0.004
Joy 4.48 3.04 3.05 5.91
Fear 4.93 3.43 3.33 6.54
Induced emotion FAI*** SD Confidence interval* F p-value
Inferior Superior
Neutral 0.04 0.02 0.03 0.06 19.623 <0.001
Joy 0.26 0.32 0.41 0.11
Fear 0.23 0.29 0.09 0.37
Induced emotion ECR SD Confidence interval* F p-value
Inferior Superior Table 3.
Neutral 0.15 0.04 0.13 0.18 23.031 <0.001 Summary of results
Joy 0.24 0.09 0.19 0.28 for electroence-
Fear 0.36 0.12 0.30 0.41 phalography metrics
and electrical
Notes: *95% confidence interval for the mean. **Mean spectral power (MSP) in the frontal lobe (electrodes
AF3, AF4, F3, F4, F7 and F8), measured in microvolts-squared (µV2), in the beta frequency range conductance in the
(14–30 Hz). ***Frontal asymmetry index (FAI), in the Alpha frequency range (8–13 Hz; electrodes AF4 and skin (MSP, FAI and
AF3), measured in microvolts (µV) ECR)

6. Discussion
This paper investigates how induced emotions influence visual attention to elements of beer
advertisements. Viewers’ attention to the ads was analyzed after being induced to joy, fear
and neutrality. This section was divided into the two target emotions analyzed (joy and fear)
compared with the baseline condition (neutrality).

6.1 Induction of joy versus neutrality

The results indicate that the induction of joy previously to ad viewing increases visual
attention to brand name, indicating that joy-induced viewers attributed more relevance to
them (Tsai et al., 2012). Thus, participants who were previously induced by joy spent
significantly more time looking at the brand within the ads than the participants induced to
neutrality.
This finding agrees with the emotional approach-avoidance model (Spielberg et al., 2012;
Kelley et al., 2017; Brookshire and Casasanto, 2018; Ascheid et al., 2019), which indicates that
positive emotions lead to an approaching behavior concerning a given stimulus. In terms of
capturing visual attention, it is reflected in the greater visual interest in a stimulus (Ascheid
et al., 2019; Brookshire and Casasanto, 2018; Kelley et al., 2017; Spielberg et al., 2012),
suggesting that the induction of joy would lead to an increase in the capture of visual
attention to the advertising stimulus. This assumption is strengthened by Soussignan et al.
(2015), who found a positive correlation between the level of visual attention and joy, and
Breuer et al. (2021), whose study indicates that low-to-moderate arousal and neutral-to-
positive emotional states felt by the viewers during sponsors messages exposure are most
likely to maximize visual attention to them.
Besides, the advertising stimuli used in this study belong to a beer brand that is highly
popular with young people (study sample) and naturally evokes positive emotions once
advertisements tend to induce positive associations with their brands in their potential
consumers (Klassen et al., 2018). Thus, the previous induction of joy could be accentuating
EJM

Figure 3.
Relationship between
induced emotions and
visual attention
metrics to the ad’s
elements
 Post hoc
Confidence interval* Bonferroni
Ads’ elements Mean value SD Inferior Superior Induced emotion F p-value Emotion p-value Hypothesis

Brand name 0.34 0.17 0.26 0.42 Neutral 18.02 <0.001 Joy  Neutral <0.001 H1a: supported
0.74 0.20 0.64 0.84 Joy
0.64 0.26 0.52 0.77 Fear Fear  Neutral <0.001 H2a: supported
Product packaging 0.53 0.32 0.38 0.68 Neutral 4.02 0.02 Joy  Neutral 0.199 H1b: not supported
0.72 0.20 0.62 0.81 Joy
0.81 0.40 0.62 1.00 Fear Fear  Neutral 0.022 H2b: supported
Human faces 1.28 0.44 1.07 1.49 Neutral 4.98 0.01 Joy  Neutral 0.499 H3: not supported
1.11 0.36 0.94 1.28 Joy
0.89 0.35 0.73 1.06 Fear Fear  Neutral 0.008 H4: supported

Note: *95% confidence interval for the mean

of visual attention
Summary of results
Table 4.
emotion
Effect of

induction
EJM this effect and, therefore, increasing the visual interest of the participants in the brand and
product packaging due to a possible effect of interaction between the induced joy and the
positive associations already established concerning the brand (Tellis et al., 2019).

6.2 Induction of fear versus neutrality

These results point out that the induction of fear increases visual attention to
advertisements’ elements, such as brand name and product packaging, and decreases the
visual attention to human faces. Thus, it was seen that the TVD was higher for fear-induced
than neutrality-induced viewers to the brand name and product packaging and smaller for
human faces within beer ads.
The plausible explanation to support this result is that negative emotions might increase
the concern about decision-making (Hwang and Lee, 2022). Thus, fear-induced participants
might be more concerned about reducing the decision-making risk of whether to buy the
product when exposed to beer ads, leading to higher visual attention to the product
packaging and logo. Besides a second possible reason is that negative emotion valence
might increase visual attention to hedonic products (Motoki et al., 2019). Therefore,
considering beer as a hedonic product, fear might increase the visual attention to its
advertisement elements (logo and packaging).
Regarding the smaller visual attention to human faces when individuals were induced to
fear, this result agrees with the task relevance theory, reinforced by Wooley et al. (2022),
which states that when seeing ads, the consumers have the task of checking the advertised
product relevance leading to higher visual attention to visual branding presence.
Considering that the induction of fear increased the visual attention to the brand name and
product packaging, the viewers, when induced to fear, started to prioritize these elements
instead human faces in beer ads (attributes less relevant to the ads), resulting in a decreased
attention to them. It is also important to highlight that although the induction of fear
contributed to reducing the TVD to human faces and increasing it to more relevant ads
elements (brand name and product packaging) when comparing the visual attention among
the three areas of interest (brand name, product packaging and human faces), human faces
still have the higher TVD, as they are almost always the focus of visual attention (Fidelis
et al., 2017; Min et al., 2017).

7. Conclusion
This study examined the influence of emotion induction (neutral, joy and fear) on the level of
visual attention in beer advertisements. A multi-method design was used; the
electroencephalogram and electrical conductance sensor on the skin were used to confirm
that the emotions were induced in the individuals, while eye-tracking assessed their visual
attention to beer ads.
The results observed in this study conclude that the induction of emotions previous to
the ad viewing influences visual attention to the beer advertisements’ elements. More
specifically, joy induction increases visual attention to the brand name within the
advertisements. Fear induction increases visual attention to the brand name and product
packaging and decreases the visual attention to human faces within the ads. In conclusion,
the induction of emotions should be managed and used to elaborate advertisements’
strategy. The present study brings theoretical and practical implications highlighted in the
following sections.
7.1 Theoretical implications Effect of
The present study deepens the understanding of induced emotions previously to the ad emotion
viewing, highlighting their influence on visual attention to the elements within the ads. The
literature has already indicated that emotional induction could influence individuals’ visual
induction
attention to their bodies (Naumann et al., 2019), to paintings (Biele et al., 2013) and to texts
(Scrimin and Mason, 2015). Besides, Breuer et al. (2021) also suggest that emotional states
felt by the viewers during sponsors’ messages are most likely to influence their visual
attention. However, it is the first study to investigate if the induction of emotions before the
ad viewing (i.e. the feeling of emotions that does not occur at the same time as ads exposure
but previous to it) can influence visual attention toward ads’ elements. Thus, this paper
extends the literature on ad visual attention by indicating that the induction of joy
previously to the ad viewing can contribute to increasing visual attention to the brand name
within the ads, and the induction of fear increases visual attention to both brands and
product packaging and reduces the level of visual attention to human faces within the ads.
Thus, it is suggested that the visual attention toward advertisement might be influenced not
only by the consumers’ interest (Wedel and Pieters, 2008) and emotions during ads exposure
Breuer et al. (2021) but also by induced emotions previously to the ad viewing.

7.2 Practical implications

This study has important practical implications for advertising strategies, as its findings
can serve as a basis for developing advertising campaigns that use emotion induction to
manipulate the level of visual attention of potential consumers. First, the induction of joy
seems to increase the time of visual attention dedicated to the brand name, which is
especially great for brands being introduced to the market and that need to attract as much
visual attention as possible from their potential consumers. Thus, a possible strategy to
improve the potential consumers’ visual attention to the brand names would be to present
positive news immediately before the commercials begin or start the commercial with
images that might induce positive feelings right before presenting the brand.
Second, the induction of fear can also positively alter the capture of visual attention and,
consequently, increase the efficiency of the advertising stimulus, such as brand name and
product packaging, to its potential consumers. In this way, the results suggest that when
marketing professionals only want to attract attention to the visual branding presence (for
instance, brand name and product packaging), it might be an excellent strategy to display
the advertising stimuli immediately after the newscast with potentially fear content, as the
visual attention to the brands’ names and product packaging present in advertisements that
are displayed after a newscast with negative news can be increased. However, when
implementing this strategy, besides the visual attention, marketing professionals should
also consider how the emotion induction might influence the intention to buy the product.
For instance, fear induction might be good to increase the intention to get a vaccine (Avery
and Park, 2018), scarce products (Good and Hyman, 2021; Prentice et al., 2022) and
supporting local businesses (Kim et al., 2022) but might also decrease the intention to buy
other products, as shown during COVID-19 pandemic (Huang and Sengupta, 2020; Rayburn
et al., 2022).
Third, we suggest that by using personal user data, online advertisements should appear
shortly after displaying news that is considered positive or negative for specific viewers to
increase the chances of getting higher visual attention for the advertisements. The use of
personal data helps to show the news in a personalized way since the same news can be
considered positive for one person and negative for another. In this sense, it is expected that
after showing a given individual’s positive or negative news, he will be induced to positive
EJM or negative emotions and, consequently, to greater visual attention to the brand names or
product packaging within the ad.
Fourth, it is also worth noting that when comparing visual attention among brands,
products and faces, the highest visit duration mean value was for human faces. Thus,
considering that human faces are almost always the focus of visual attention (Fidelis et al.,
2017; Min et al., 2017), besides inducing joy or fear, marketing professionals might also
improve consumers’ visual attention to the brand name and product packaging by adding
them near to the human faces.
Fifth, fear induction can increase the potential consumers’ visual attention to brand names
and product packaging and decrease visual attention to human faces. Thus, focusing on brand
or product display in static visual advertisements with fear induction might be a more efficient
strategy to increase consumers’ visual attention to relevant elements of the ads.
Sixth, in addition to the possible implications for potential customer understanding to
improve advertising strategies, these findings also have implications for psychopathological
research. The results found here align with the available evidence, indicating that
individuals with excessively high levels of fear avoid eye contact with the faces of other
individuals (Singh et al., 2015). This result could reinforce the difficulties of social interaction
in patients with panic disorder (McTeague et al., 2018) and generalized anxiety disorder
(Rutter et al., 2019), sustaining the impairments in the social functioning observed in these
patients (Young et al., 2019).

7.3 Limitations and further research

Despite the contributions generated by this study, some limitations can be used as directions
for the development of future studies. First, despite the three metrics used to assess emotional
responses, no questionnaire or self-assessment scale of emotional induction was used to
investigate subjective aspects, that is, with a first-person report of the emotional state produced
by the induction procedures. Future studies can bring more clarity to the emotional aspects
involved in the procedures for inducing affection if they combine objective and subjective
methods for measurement. In addition, a follow-up behavioral study with a questionnaire
would be valuable to link eye-tracking results to some behavioral ones (i.e. relevance, recall,
recognition and liking) elicited after ad viewing to establish real-world implications.
To achieve the objective of the present study, we analyzed the EEG measures only as
manipulation checks to verify if the studied emotions were actually induced. However, the
recent literature indicates that EEG measures could also be used to evaluate relaxation,
pleasantness and motivational responses (Artêncio et al., 2022). Additionally, Venkatraman
et al. (2021) indicate that neuromarketing equipment could be used together in a multi-
methodological approach to understanding different ways of processing ads. Thus, we
suggest that future studies could use a multi-methodological approach with neuromarketing
equipment (i.e. eye-tracking, biometrics, fMRI and EEG) to understand different ways of
processing the ads after the participants have been induced to emotions, enhancing the
comprehension of how consumers process ads information.
Further studies can also propose quantifying the emotional effect using regression
models that consider emotional expression an independent variable. Besides, although it
was not the objective of the present study, the results suggest that when comparing the
visual attention mean values between brand name, product packaging and human faces,
people have a higher fixation duration on human faces. Therefore, future research might
also verify whether this is a significant difference intending to comprehend what elements
viewers pay more attention to under various emotions.
 In addition, the study used only one type of procedure for emotional induction; therefore, Effect of
future studies could use other methods to verify whether the effects on visual attention emotion
found here can be achieved with other forms of emotional induction. The present study also
did not induce other basic emotions such as disgust, anger and surprise. New studies can fill
induction
this gap, inducing these emotions to see if they affect visual attention in advertising stimuli.
In the same way, it would be valid to induce complex emotions, such as shame, admiration
and gratitude, to investigate whether they would influence visual attention in
advertisements.
Another limitation is that the effects of emotional induction on visual attention found in
this study is that the advertisements used are for a specific brand of beer, so it is not
possible, at this moment, to state that the effects found here extend to other brands and
products. Therefore, it would be of great value that future studies deal with investigating
whether the induction of emotions produces effects on the level of visual attention in other
brands and products, intending to verify whether this can be a generalizable strategy to
manipulate the level of attention visual in the face of advertising stimuli.
It is also important to mention that the sample size is another limitation of the present
study, as it does not allow the generalizability of findings. Further studies might be able to
obtain a higher number of participants. Finally, only static visual stimuli were used; it
would be desirable that future studies verify the effect of inducing emotions for nonstatic
visual stimuli, for example, to verify whether the effects found here also apply to videos.

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Corresponding author
Marina Lourenção can be contacted at: mtalourencao@usp.br

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