A Sound Prediction: EEG-Based Neural Synchrony Predicts Online Music Streams

Abstract

Neuroforecasting predicts population-wide choices based on neural data of individuals and can be used, for example, in neuromarketing to estimate campaign successes. To deliver true value, the brain activity metrics should deliver predictive value above and beyond traditional stated preferences. Evidence from movie trailer research has proposed neural synchrony, which compares the similarity of brain responses across participants and has shown to be a promising tool in neuroforecasting for movie popularity. The music industry might also benefit from these increasingly accurate success predictors, but only one study has been forecasting music popularity, using functional magnetic resonance imaging measures. Current research validates the strength of neural synchrony as a predictive measure for popularity of music, making use of electroencephalogram to capture moment-to-moment neural similarity between respondents while they listen to music. Neural synchrony is demonstrated to be a significant predictor for public appreciation on Spotify 3 weeks and 10 months after the release of the albums, especially when combined with the release of a single. On an individual level, other brain measures were shown to relate to individual subjective likeability ratings, including Frontal Alpha Asymmetry and engagement when combined with the factors artist and single release. Our results show the predictive value of brain activity measures outperforms stated preferences. Especially, neural synchrony carries high predictive value for the popularity on Spotify, providing the music industry with an essential asset for efficient decision making and investments, in addition to other practical implications that include neuromarketing and advertising industries.

Neural mechanisms of expert persuasion on willingness to pay for sugar

“…In our study, participants who exhibited high ISC during listening to the healthy eating call might have memorized more information contained in it, which might have increased their compliance with the expert. Overall, neural synchrony is a promising tool in neuroforecasting for movie and music popularity (Christoforou et al, 2017 ; Leeuwis et al, 2021 ), as well as for television ads (Dmochowski et al, 2014 ). Here, we show that neural synchrony may, in addition, be a promising tool in neuroforecasting of healthy eating advertisements.…”

“…An EEG-derived measure that is being increasingly used in this research area is the similarity of individuals’ neural activity, or intersubject correlation (ISC). As a marker of engagement and attention (Hasson et al, 2004 ; Dmochowski et al, 2012 ; Ki et al, 2016 ), ISC has successfully been used to predict population-wide music popularity (Leeuwis et al, 2021 ), movies’ box-office performance (Christoforou et al, 2017 ) and individual preferences for television ads (Dmochowski et al, 2014 ). Given these findings, ISC is considered to be a promising neurophysiological measure of advertising effectiveness in social contexts (Pozharliev et al, 2017 ), especially when the study designs include long-duration stimuli (Hakim and Levy, 2019 ).…”

A systematic review on EEG-based neuromarketing: recent trends and analyzing techniques

“…Garczarek-Bąk et al [ 115 ] evaluated the predictive power of their model for private label purchasing using the Chi-square test. Different studies utilized Levene’s and Shapiro–Wilk’s tests to verify whether or not their samples fit normal distributions [ 104 , 112 ]. Apart from these, descriptive statistics such as mean, median, and standard deviation were used by some studies to interpret the data [ 53 , 54 , 87 ].…”

Inter‐subject correlation of electroencephalographic and behavioural responses reflects time‐varying engagement with natural music

“…Finally, ISC may contribute not only basic scientific findings but also predictive insights for real-world application (Kaneshiro & Dmochowski, 2015). Leeuwis et al (2021) showed that EEG alpha power synchrony could predict song popularity based on Spotify 8 streams, when subjective ratings from the experimental sample could not. Small-sample EEG ISC has also been used to predict population-level preferences for television commercials and in a time-resolved fashion over a television episode (Dmochowski et al, 2014).…”