ABSTRACT
The scientific pursuit of an understanding of the dynamic, socially complex interaction between the human mind and media is arguably at an all-time high. The number of media research labs at universities where scholars include psychophysiological measures in their investigations of mediated message processing has substantially increased in the past two decades. We hope that many of those who read this book contribute to this trend by starting their own labs at universities or by becoming productive researchers in existing ones. It is important to note, however, that the exciting scientific environment for understanding the human mind “on” media is certainly not confined to academia. Many private media research companies are investing in psychophysiological measures as a way to provide more scientifically rigorous data—in comparison to traditional surveys and focus groups—for clients whose business is substantially tied to how consumers process all forms of media content. Nowhere is this industry trend as obvious as in advertising, where the term neuromarketing has emerged to identify the explicit pursuit of an understanding of how the human brain processes brand messages (Plassman, Ambler, Braeutigam, & Kenning, 2007). This shift in the advertising industry has been characterized as a redirection from an emphasis on the process of creating and delivering ad campaigns to one of understanding the processor of campaign messages—the human mind (Du Plessis, 2008). We have truly entered a new phase in the history of media research that could be considered an age of aggressive scientific pursuit of media psychological science— the study of the embodied mind “on” media.
