Welcome to “Brainwave Analysis”–Where Brainwaves are “Taken, Analyzed, Cleaned-up, Processed” and the Metrics are “Extracted” (Coming to a Future Political Campaign Near You?)

I don’t listen to morning radio very often, but Tuesday (July 22) I was out early and happened to tune in to NPR’s “Morning Edition.”  I came in on the middle of an interview about something called “neurofocus” and thought it was related to a new medical finding. As I listened further, however, I realized that it had nothing to do with medicine.

The segment was actually about a company named NeuroFocus, Inc. (“Brainwave Analysis for Audience Engagement”) which is gathering data about how people respond to messaging in a new way which is problematical downright SCARY.

According to the company’s website:

NeuroFocus, Inc. is an innovative company applying the latest advances in neuroscience to the world of advertising and messaging. Leveraging a rapidly growing body of research and insights into how the human brain processes stimuli like ads, messages, and products, we are able to track millisecond-by-millisecond brain responses to messaging.

Our breakthrough techniques utilize advances in measuring attention challenges, emotional engagement, and memory/retention to measure the effectiveness of advertising. Our measurements are precise, unambiguous, and repeatable. The measurement method is established EEG technology, which is simple, non-invasive, non-influential, and comfortable for and familiar to consumers.

Their “Neuroinformatics Database” is a much different animal that the “Gallup Brain” project which I discussed briefly in a recent post, “Musings on Pollsters: Confessions of a Former Gallup Study Director…(Updated 1X).”  Gallup’s project merely involves a set-up that involves using millions of records from six decades of surveys.

No, what NeuroFocus is doing is entirely different.