Emotional Response Test

What It Measures

Pre-conscious emotional reactions that get activated when a product, brand, or message is encountered in a message or buying situation. If the stimulus is novel, emotional response will be strongly influenced by related concepts in long-term memory - for example, a new product might inherit initial emotional response from its more familiar parent brand.

Emotional response may or may not be accompanied by a felt sense (conscious experience) of positive or negative feelings, and thus may or may not be verbally reportable.

Use It To ...

• Determine whether an emotional appeal in an ad or message is getting through
• Measure hard to articulate and subtle emotions acting below the level of verbal articulation or self-awareness
• Compare unfiltered emotional reactions to alternative product or packaging designs
  
• Calibrate subtle emotional reactions to product placements in entertainment and games
  
• Identify sense of frustration or accomplishment in software usability testing
  

How We Report Results

• Stimuli compared on 2D valence by intensity (arousal) graph
• Continuous valence-intensity graph (ongoing stimuli like ads, entertainment programming, game play, web experience)

Underlying Science

• Affective priming
• Event-related potentials (ERP)
• Facial micro-muscle movement (EMG)
  
• Physiological response analysis: skin conductance, pupilometry