Guideline for measuring psychophysiological responses

Task 6.1 (MS16, M24) aims to harmonise protocols and standards used to obtain psychophysiological measures and explore the extent to which psychophysiological measures can be aligned with self-reported measures (e.g., emotions, beliefs) and other sources of data (Task 6.3, 6.4, and 6.5) to better explain consumer choice behaviour (self-reported or observed in virtual and real environments). This will be the first step to integrate psychophysiological data with the COMFOCUS Knowledge platform (WP2). Consumers’ psychophysiological reactions to choice environments or food products can reveal actual consumers’ decisions better than self-reported measures (e.g., self-reported emotions or beliefs). These reactions can be objectively measured using data related to hearth rate, galvanic skin response and pupil diameter that can be collected using emerging technologies such as skin conductivity sensors and eye-trackers. Psychophysiological reactions to choice environments or food products can be also gathered using readers of facial expressions (e.g. FaceReader) which are able to reveal consumers’ emotions (e.g., disgust, joy, etc.). The procedure used to integrate this psychophysiological data to existing datasets (e.g., self-reported measures, observed purchasing behaviour) can be very challenging because such data are generally very rich, dynamic over time (e.g. per 40 ms for eye tracking) and also specific for an individual for a given situation or a product.