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Looking into the brain with real-time big data analysis | NPM Capital

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Date
August 21, 2017
Looking into the brain with real-time big data analysis | NPM Capital

The current methods of market research are deficient in a variety of ways. The main drawback: they address what consumers or users experience “consciously”, whereas the large majority of our preferences and purchasing and other decisions arise in the subconscious brain. The interest in technologies that can actually look “into the brain” is therefore growing throughout the world. The Amsterdam-based start-up Braingineers is one of the front runners. 

The smell of paint and new carpets is still fresh in the brand-new location of Braingineers, in a large shared office building on Johan Huizingalaan in Amsterdam. “We have grown 300% in the past year,” says managing partner Daan Bolder. “A move into a new office building was unavoidable.”

Bolder has just shown off the research facility where respondents sit at screens during studies and has explained the technique. “Unlike other firms, we do not use an fMRI-scanner – which is like a tunnel in which participants have to lie down – but a combination of EEG and eye-tracking technology,” says Bolder.

“With an EEG, you use a kind of helmet with sensors to measure brain waves on the scalp. We link this to the eye-tracker, which measures around ten times every second what exactly the respondent is looking at. Then we let the respondent watch a TV programme or perform a task on a website in a real life setting: “order this and that product and pay for them,” for instance. While the respondent carries out that task, we are able to identify any specific patterns in the measurement data on the basis of smart algorithms.”

The various patterns, it turns out, correspond to subconscious expressions of excitement, frustration or attention/concentration. “So what we are actually doing is real-time big data analysis,” says Bolder. “Doing this with multiple respondents enables us to determine with high statistical certainty where users become frustrated on a site, for instance, or which page produces increased attention levels. Instead of asking users what they think about a website, we just measure it.”

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