Consumer Neuroscience - Foundation, Validation, and Relevance

Book excerpt: Consumer neuroscience has become an expanding area of both research and conduct – spanning from academic interests in the brain bases of consumption choices to commercial application of neuroscience tools and metrics. However, many of these advances are still criticized for low applicability, scattered publication records, conceptual vagueness, and a lack of proper scientific and commercial validation. To make matters worse, there is now a host of proposed commercial applications of both the insights from neuroscience and the application of neuroscience and neurophysiology tools to test consumer responses. While many of these approaches may be valid, many other approaches are either not properly validated, or may be flawed, misguided, or even outright lies. As a discipline, there is a need for both the basic and applied research in consumer neuroscience to become aligned. The purpose of this Research Topic is to provide this much-needed platform for such an industrial alignment. In doing so, this Research Topic will provide perspectives on three main areas: 1. distinctions between basic, translational and applied consumer neuroscience research 2. conceptual clarification on key concepts relevant to the science and application of consumer neuroscience 3. validation of consumer neuroscience methods and how they relate to commercially relevant cases. For this Research Topic, we therefore welcome submissions that combine academic and commercial research, all in the vein of making advances in establishing a valid, applicable consumer neuroscience.