Firms Link Visual Attention with Emotional Response

Neuro-technology specialist Emotiv has joined forces with eye tracking specialist SensoMotoric Instruments (SMI) to launch a single system through which to measure and analyze consumers' visual attention along with their emotional responses to brands.

The system integrates SMI's RED-m remote eye tracker with Emotiv's EEG Neuroheadset, to provide synchronized measurement of both data streams, including data on emotional engagement. Through this combination, the firms say neuromarketers can determine which element of an ad or product design their consumers are looking at, while at the same time showing how they feel about it.

SMI Business Director Christian Villwock says both solutions will work for a range of users and applications.

In SMI's Experiment Suite software, researchers can view the live stream of both SMI eye tracking and Emotiv EEG data sets. They can also visualize findings by creating heatmaps of eye movement together with presentations of the emotion measures calculated by the Emotiv Affectiv Suite. Additionally, the software enables users to export eye tracking measures as well as synchronized data from any of the Emotiv detection suites - including facial expressions.

Tan Le, co-Founder of Emotiv, adds: 'We have always believed in the synergies between eye tracking and EEG. By bringing together our unique technologies in a fully integrated solution, we can offer researchers worldwide a new dimension to their research endeavors.'

Web sites: www.smivision.com and www.emotiv.com .