How to Measure Cerebral Correlates of Emotions in Marketing Relevant Tasks Giovanni Vecchiato • Patrizia Cherubino • Anton Giulio Maglione • Maria Trinidad Herrera Ezquierro • Franco Marinozzi • Fabiano Bini • Arianna Trettel • Fabio Babiloni Received: 15 December 2013 / Accepted: 18 August 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 Abstract Nowadays, there is a growing interest in mea- suring emotions through the estimation of cerebral vari- ables. Several techniques and methods are used and debated in neuroscience. In such a context, the present paper provides examples of time-varying variables related to the estimation of emotional valence, arousal and Approach-Withdrawal behavior in marketing relevant con- texts. In particular, we recorded electroencephalographic (EEG), galvanic skin response (GSR) and heart rate (HR) in a group of healthy subjects while they are watching different TV commercials. Specifically, results obtained in the Experiment 1 shows a significant increase of cortical power spectral density across left frontal areas in the alpha band and an enhance of cardiac activity during the obser- vation of TV commercials that have been judged pleasant. In the Experiment 2, frontal EEG asymmetry, GSR and HR measurements are used to draw cognitive and emotional indices in order to track the subject’s internal state frame by frame of the commercial. A specific case study shows how the variations of the defined Approach-Withdrawal and emotional indices can distinguish the reactions of younger adults from the older ones during the observation of a funny spot. This technology could be of help for marketers to overcome some of the drawbacks of the standard marketing tools (e.g., interviews, focus groups) usually adopted during the analysis of the emotional per- ception of advertisements. Keywords EEG  Heart rate  Emotions  TV commercials  Neuromarketing G. Vecchiato (&)  F. Babiloni Department Physiology and Pharmacology, ‘‘Sapienza’’ University, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy e-mail: giovanni.vecchiato@uniroma1.it G. Vecchiato  P. Cherubino  A. G. Maglione  A. Trettel  F. Babiloni BrainSigns s.r.l., Via Sesto Celere 7c, 00152 Rome, Italy P. Cherubino Department Economics and Marketing, ‘‘IULM’’ University, Via Carlo Bo 1, 20143 Milan, Italy A. G. Maglione Department of Anatomy, Histology, Forensic Medicine and Orthopedics, ‘‘Sapienza’’ University, Via Borelli 50, 00185 Rome, Italy M. T. H. Ezquierro Clinical and Experimental Neuroscience (NiCE-CIBERNED), Department of Human Anatomy and Psychobiology, School of Medicine, University of Murcia, Campus Universitario de Espinardo, 30100 Murcia, Spain F. Marinozzi  F. Bini Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, ‘‘Sapienza’’ University, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy F. Babiloni IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, via Ardeatina 306, 00179 Rome, Italy 123 Cogn Comput DOI 10.1007/s12559-014-9304-x