We shine a light on the psychology of professionals who create new content, ideas and experiences, but also how various users experience the outcomes of those creative processes. In each case, we’ll consider what neuroscience can tell us about how imagination, emotion and social forces combine in the creative process/experience, and how we can measure and perhaps enhance its effectiveness.

“Excellent!5*” Verbal assessments of musical, theatrical and dance performances are ubiquitous, but are there other way to measure audience engagement? We illustrate how biometric measures like heart rate and electrodermal activity (also known as galvanic skin response) provide novel insights into audience engagement with a case study of the musical, Dreamgirls. 

Narratives can exert a powerful influence on behaviour. How can neuroscience help us understand the customer experience, and enhance our narrative content accordingly? We consider how simple messaging can significantly impact environmental behaviour, examine the unintended consequences of aspirational content, and discover how the format of a narrative (i.e. audio or video) can impact the audience emotionally.  

The most compelling narratives can synchronise physiological responses between individual members of their audiences. For example, some Super Bowl ads cause synchronised brain activity that predicts the sharing of those ads via social media. Similar effects are seen in physiological responses –people’s hearts literally beat together – and this can be used to predict market-level performance via neuro-focus groups.

People make different decisions when they’re alone and when they’re in groups. In this session, we introduce a tool called the Hive that demonstrates the fundamental principles of group decision-making using a highly interactive digital approach. We look at social influence, conformity, risk, and their roles in creativity.

When it comes to copy-testing marketing materials, the focus group is notoriously problematic. Can we use neuro focus groups to predict market-level performance? This is a session in three parts, exploring how fMRI, EEG and eye-tracking can be used to copy-test advertising effectiveness. For each technique we look at one or two case studies, exploring the science behind the method to understand its strengths and limitations.

This session is particularly interactive and bespoke to your company. Using a framework we’ve developed over various collaborations, which includes a review of potential business questions, relevant case studies and neuromarketing tools, we will outline a research project together that uses consumer neuroscience to address an open issue in your company

In this session we wrap up the day with the key take-home messages including: a model of creativity; a simple framework for using neuroscience in narratives; and the main neuroscience tools, including their strengths & weaknesses. Finally, we will look to the future at how scientific, technological and educations advances will likely shape the next 10 years.

Examining the difference between explicit and implicit attitudes, why it’s so difficult to change attitudes, and how we can effectively persuade people, this session touches on principles of consumer neuroscience that you may already applying to your work. There will be room forsharing stories, experiences and ideas in this session, as well as small illustrative exercises.

Here we investigate more closely how social behaviour spreads within social (media) networks, and with what consequences. We will provide you with a brief overview of the most important elements of social network theory to then discuss ways in which this method of analysing human behaviour can be applied to your work and inform your thinking processes.

How are psychological discoveries about human cognition and behaviour being exploited in the era of big data and ubiquitous sensors and computing devices? We look at how information and influence spread acrosssocial networks, and how tech companies gain insights into users’ behaviour andpersonality from their digital footprints.

Just as neuroscience can be used to better understand consumers, the same methods can be applied to improving the employee experience. Here we use call centres as an example of measuring and reducing stress levels for employees, and discuss how to measure the effectiveness of interventions among staff.

Human beings are not solitary creatures; we interact with and depend on others. Social interaction between human beings has consequences for the individual’s behaviour, thinking and emotions. In this introductory session, we discuss the relationship between individuals and their social environment and the importance of understanding this interaction.

Advances in our ability to measure consumer responses via facial recognition, physiological measurements and brain scanning introduce a new set of ethical issues that need to be understood and addressed.  In this session, we discuss five principles of ethical behaviour, illustrating each with real-world examples of the mis-use of neuroscience.  These principles form the basis for a voluntary code of ethical conduct and a 'Right to Cognitive Liberty'.

Building on what has been discussed in previous sessions, here we investigate more closely how social behaviour spreads within social (media) networks and with which consequences. We will provide you with a brief overview of the most important elements of social network theory to then discuss ways in which this method of analysing human behaviour can be applied to your work and inform your thinking processes.

We examine in more detail how the imagined or real presence of others has a firm grip on how we think and act. Together, we explore how human beings have developed cognitive and behavioural peculiarities that stem from their frequent social interactions, and discuss what this means from a marketing perspective.

A great session to finish off your workshop, we wrap things up with a discussion around the most important take-home messages of the day. We also develop practical and specific goals for how to integrate these insights into your daily work practices and future projects.

We visit an MRI suite where participants get to feel the magnetic field of the scanner. One volunteer will experience a brain scan, with a tour of their brain pointing out its major components and their functions. The session also covers what can and can’t be done with an MRI scanner.

This session can only be conducted at UCL-hosted workshops. For off-site workshops, we recommend the Inside Your Brain session as an alternative.

This session covers the basics of how to design an experiment, from identifying a question to finding an appropriate method to answer it. We look at the importance of baselines, dependent measures, split half testing and ANOVA designs, all illustrated with real world examples.

What’s the psychology behind persuasion and marketing techniques? We present examples of cognitive biases in decision-making to show how behaviour can be primed and manipulated. These include ‘framing’, ‘anchoring’,the ‘peak-end effect’ and views of the self and others such as ‘naïve realism’,‘above-average effect’ and ‘fundamental attribution error’.

If you had access to an MRI scanner, what could you do with it? Here we explain the fundamental principles of how a scanner works, focusing on its strengths and weaknesses. Case studies are used to illustrate best practice as well as common mistakes and their implications for business.    

EEG is probably the most readily available consumer neuroscience tool, with many companies offering EEG research services. How do these services work and what do they offer?  We discuss the fundamental principles of EEG, focusing on its strengths and weaknesses. Case studies are used to illustrate best-practice as well as common mistakes and their implications for business.

The eye movements 3 or 4 times a second, and psychologists have found that each movement reveals not just how people see, but what they expect, imagine, and believe about the world around them. The size and cost of eye tracking devices previously meant that they were only found in the laboratory, but recent technological advances have made them cheap and portable. Here we will discuss the science behind eye movements, and how they are tied to cognition and decision making, and how they can give insight in the consumer experience.

We review the fundamental science behind biometric measurements and use case studies to illustrate the types of insights they can provide above and beyond more traditional methods. Biometric measures such as heart rate and electrodermal activity (also known as galvanic skin response) can be used to measure the autonomic nervous system response. This reaction to stimuli and environments is largely subconscious and can provide insight into emotional arousal and cognitive effort.

Asking people for their opinions is problematic. They might give the answer they think you want to hear or that makes them look good. In the past few years, social psychologists have developed ways to avoid these problems of self presentation, and quantify people’s implicit opinions. Using reaction time measures, the IAT, measures the degree to which people associate categories together. For example, despite stating explicitly that men and women are equally competent at different academic topics, implicitly most people more easily associate male names with science topics and female names with humanities topics. We will discuss the theoretical and practical promises and limitations of these powerful techniques.