Neural correlates of gender congruence in audiovisual commercials for gender‐targeted products: An fMRI study

Abstract

This article explores neural and self-report responses to gender congruence in product-voice combinations in commercials. An fMRI study was carried out in which participants (n = 30) were presented with gender-targeted pictures of characteristic male or female products accompanied by either gender congruent or incongruent voices. The findings show that attitudes are more positive toward commercials with gender congruent than with gender incongruent product-voice combinations. fMRI analyses revealed that primary visual brain areas, namely calcarine and cuneus, responded stronger to congruent than incongruent combinations suggesting that participants enhanced their endogenous attention toward congruent commercials. Incongruent combinations, by contrast, elicited stronger activation in areas related to the perception of conflicts in information processing and error monitoring, such as the supramarginal, inferior parietal gyri and superior, and middle temporal gyri. Interestingly, increased activation in the posterior cingulate cortex (an area related to value encoding) predicted more positive attitudes toward congruent commercials. Together, these results advance our understanding of the neural correlates of processing congruent and incongruent audiovisual stimuli. These findings may advice advertising professionals in designing successful campaigns of everyday products, namely by making use of congruent instead of incongruent product-voice combinations.

Technological advancements and opportunities in Neuromarketing: a systematic review

“…Soria Morillo et al [40], Yang et al [41], Cherubino et al [42], Soria Morillo et al [43], Vasiljević et al [44], Yang et al [45], Pilelienė and Grigaliūnaitė [36], Daugherty et al [46], Royo et al [47], Etzold et al [48], Chen et al [49], Casado-Aranda et al [50], Randolph and Pierquet [51], Nomura and Mitsukura [52], Ungureanu et al [53], Goyal and Singh [54], Oon et al [55], Singh et al [56].…”

“…[35], Gordon et al [59], Krampe et al [60], Hubert et al [25], Çakir et al [24], Holst and Henseler [61], Hsu and Cheng [62], Hoefer et al [27], Chen et al [49], Casado-Aranda et al [50], Wang et al [30], Jain et al [63], Wolfe et al [31], Bosshard et al [32], Fehse et al [33].…”

“…This restriction causes complex preprocessing and movement-related artifact removal from the fMRI signals. A number of studies, i.e., Venkatraman et al [38], Marques et al [22], Hubert et al [25], Hsu and Cheng [26], Chen et al [49], Casado-Aranda et al [50], Wang et al [30], Wolfe et al [31], Fehse et al [33], etc., have used fMRI as the neuroimaging technique in their Neuromarketing studies. fMRI in all studies required the test subjects to remain static and displayed the subjects the images and commercials of products for 3-5 s. Later the subjects had to make purchase decision within 5 s after their exposure to the stimuli [50].…”

“…Although GSR cannot independently relate to emotional valence, some of the Neuromarketing studies, i.e., Cherubino et al [42], Çakar et al [34], Ungureanu et al [53], Magdin et al [71], Goyal and Singh [54], and Singh et al [56] have used skin conductance along with heart rate to measure the consumer attention and focus on the TVC. [43], b fMRI imaging [50], and c eye tracking for online booking appointment [48]…”

Does Partisan Bias Modulate Neural Processing of Political Information? An Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Corruption and Positive Messages

“…In order to select the stimuli that most clearly represent the intended corruption, positive, and neutral approaches, all 80 messages were presented to 60 independent subjects (i.e., within‐subject design). Such an approach has been implemented by earlier studies in social neuroscience, such as Wildgruber et al (), Hedgcock, Vohs, and Rao (), and Casado‐Aranda, Van der Laan, and Sánchez‐Fernández (). The results backed up the manipulation checks of the experimental stimuli: (1) All corruption messages were perceived similarly as worrying (7‐Likert scale, where 1 = not worrying and 7 = very worrying , M = 6.17; SD = .84), (2); all positive messages triggered similar levels of pleasantness (7‐Likert scale, where 1 = not pleasant and 7 = very pleasant , M = 6.02; SD = .77), and (3) all neutral messages provoked indifference (7‐Likert scale, with 1 = very worrying , 4 = indifferent , and 7 = very pleasant , M = 3.81, SD = 1.00).…”