Brain signal pattern of engrossed subjects using near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and its application to TV commercial evaluation

In this paper, we present near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) signal patterns of subjects when they are focused on specific tasks. We determined that oxygenated hemoglobin in the frontal cortex decreased when the subjects were engrossed in tasks, and we propose an evaluation method for TV commercials based on the results. TV commercials are produced to be as attractive as possible and can increase consumer awareness of a particular product or its features. Our idea is based on the assumption that the attractiveness of a commercial can be estimated by the extent of decrease in oxygenated hemoglobin using NIRS, and the consumer´s awareness of the product´s features in TV commercials can be measured by analyzing the subject´s glancing regions using an eye-tracking system. We obtained good agreement between the correlation of awareness and focus, and the possibility of estimating these parameters using NIRS is suggested.