The present invention concerns methods for evaluating the emotional response to stimuli, such as marketing communications. The present invention includes a method for correlating an emotional response to brain imaging data, a method identifying an emotional response to a stimulus, and a system for identifying an emotional response to a stimulus. The present invention can incorporate a psychological non-verbal measure, such as AdSAM®, and a neural-physiological measure, functional brain imaging, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography (PET), or other functional brain imaging modality. For example, in marketing communication research, the emotional response data can be determined for such things as product concepts, advertising (concept and/or finished ads), product attributes, product benefits, brands, logos, tag lines, packaging, music, etc. The method of the invention can also be used to assess emotional response to different purchase options (e.g., retail vs. online), lifestyle issues, product usage situations, and other scenarios. In personnel management studies, the method of the invention can be used to measure employee satisfaction or employee morale.
Dimensional approach to identifying emotional responses using functional brain imaging