WO2004037086A1

WO2004037086A1 - Method for optimising and recording product attractiveness or product acceptance by observing cerebral activity

Info

Publication number: WO2004037086A1
Application number: PCT/EP2003/011519
Authority: WO
Inventors: Susanne Erk; Lars Arnim Galley; Stefan Hahn; Wilhelm Kincses; Götz Renner; Manfred Spitzer; Henrik Walter
Original assignee: Daimlerchrysler Ag
Priority date: 2002-10-23
Filing date: 2003-10-17
Publication date: 2004-05-06

Abstract

According to the invention, during the presentation of an object to a person who is to evaluate the acceptance potential or the attractiveness of said object, the cerebral activity of said person is temporally and spatially locally recorded. In this way, the acceptance or attractiveness felt and correlating with the brain activity can be objectively determined.

Description

METHOD FOR OPTIMIZING AND DETECTING PRODUCT ATTRACTIVITY OR PRODUCT ACCEPTANCE BY OBSERVING BRAIN ACTIVITY

The invention relates to methods and a device for carrying out these methods according to the preamble of patent claims 1 and 7.

Due to the variety of acceptance studies and areas of application, the scientific disciplines involved and the heterogeneity of the definitions used, there is no uniformly specific methodology for measuring attractiveness. Methods from the various disciplines are used depending on the subject and setting. Nevertheless, two essential methodological points can be worked out from the above: Firstly, this would be the question of the possibilities of measuring attractiveness before and during product development, and secondly, the importance of a qualitatively oriented approach, which above all this makes it significant that the attractiveness studies are almost exclusively field research.

It is important to be able to use acceptance studies as a forecasting tool, in order to draw conclusions about the later acceptance of the product in the early phases of a technology development and to incorporate these into the development process. Various methods such as prototyping, attractiveness studies using virtual products or product descriptions and presentations are used. In most cases, here Questionnaire studies and structured interviews carried out, which are adapted to the question, the object of the investigation and the competitive environment. Due to the dynamic process of acceptance formation, investigations at several measurement times are advisable, in the adjustment phase before use, during the takeover and in the use phase after takeover of the product. In particular, written surveys, logging of thoughts or behavioral observations are carried out, also with the help of video and tape recordings. In addition, moderated

Conduct discussions with laypersons, potential buyers or experts before developing a prototype in order to capture the ideas and attitudes of users about planned products. The methods used are preferably evaluated qualitatively. Accordingly, the structured interview is the central experimental instrument of acceptance research, since it is precisely the subjective perception of the accepting ^{λ that is the} subject of the study. Qualitative methods such as interviews, protocols of thought and moderated discussions are therefore of great heuristic value when capturing the attitudes and implicit assumptions of potential users. The validity, reliability and generalizability of the methods are problematic, some of which can be improved with computer-aided evaluation methods such as GABEK, ATLAS or WUSTMAX. In addition, quantitative evaluations of the questionnaires used are used. However, the questionnaires used are generally not validated in terms of test theory, but their quality depends very much on the expertise of the examiner. The object of the invention is to find methods and a device suitable for carrying out these methods, by means of which acceptance and attractiveness studies of objects can be carried out more reliably, and which, on the other hand, support objects on the basis of results. results of acceptance and attractiveness studies.

A research team at Harvard University is treading a new path (Schenker, Reading the Mind of the

Market, Time Magazine, Vol. 154, No.5, August 1999). For this research work, the measurement data of a positron emission tomograph (PET) was used. In a study examining the attractiveness of retail spaces, female subjects were confronted with three different types of retail environments. One of these sales environments included intrusive sales personnel and dirty surroundings, in another scenario, courteous sales personnel and a pleasant sales area were seen, and in a third scenario, test subjects were also offered pleasant additional services. During the presentation of these three scenarios, the blood flow in different parts of the brains of the test subjects was measured using a positron emission tomograph (PET). As was to be expected, most of the test subjects preferred the pleasant to the pleasant sales atmosphere. Based on the studies of the brain waves, the researchers were now able to demonstrate the regions that are important for an attractiveness measurement. On the basis of these research results, it was possible to define an optimal design of sales rooms.

The object is achieved by methods and a device suitable for carrying out these methods, the features of patent claims 1 and 7.

Advantageous refinements and developments of the invention are specified in the subclaims. In the procedures for carrying out acceptance examinations, in which a person is supposed to assess the acceptance potential or the attractiveness of an object presented to him, in the assessing or selecting person, during the presentation, brain activity is recorded locally in terms of time and place, so that this is included the neurophysiological acceptance measure correlating the brain activity or the neurophysiological measure of attractiveness can be determined. Accordingly, the device comprises a means by means of which the brain activity can be locally and temporally and spatially detected during the assessment or selection process.

In an inventive manner, the ascertained acceptance measure or attractiveness measure is now corrected with those measures which were determined during the presentation of at least one of the preceding objects. This makes it possible by means of the inventive method and the device to select the object to be presented below on the basis of the correlation result or to generate it by an automatic system. In this advantageous manner, it becomes possible to make a selection of objects to be presented on the basis of an acceptance examination, in which the objects to be selected have already been evaluated by at least one assessing person in advance of the selection. After the acceptance or attractiveness correlating with the brain activity of the person selecting it, this perceived acceptance or attractiveness is correlated with the assessments already made at least of this one object.

The invention thus makes it possible in a particularly advantageous manner to use the neurophysiological acceptance measure or the neurophysiological attractiveness measure to objectively specify correlating brain activity and to incorporate this as an evaluation function in the development process of the product in question. In a particularly advantageous manner, the biologically relevant component for the assessment can hereby be separated from the other factors influencing the assessment, which also contribute to the overall assessment. The procedure thus enables the attractiveness assessment of a product to be objectified and offers a high potential to standardize an assessment procedure. Another advantage is that the product is assessed on an ad hoc basis and that the biologically relevant perception of attractiveness therefore flows directly into product development. The measured brain activity can go directly into the development process as an evaluation function and improve the product in terms of its attractiveness / acceptance.

The objects presented to the assessing person can be real object objects, representations of such objects or else acoustic signals.

A (functional) magnetic resonance tomograph, a (functional) magnetic resonance spectroscope, a magnetoencephalograph or even an EEG can be used in a profitable way to localize the brain activity during the assessment or selection of objects by a person. These devices generally provide image data (activity patterns) of the brain within which active brain regions can also be determined automatically using image processing algorithms.

In a particularly advantageous embodiment, the device according to the invention is assigned a storage unit, in which the objects and the assessment results resulting from the acceptance tests can be saved. In this way, the results can be used for later evaluation. It is also conceivable to store the evaluation results in relation to an object with regard to different judging persons or with regard to a person who has categorized an object several times at different times. For example, a representative statement about the product attractiveness and acceptance with regard to a broad customer base can be determined by correlating the determined acceptance and attractiveness measures.

On the other hand, it is possible to measure how the judgment of a judgmental person changes, for example, through the selection of the order of objects or according to the respective state of mind.

In particular, the object-specifically stored evaluations can be used profitably, for example to assist a designer in the selection of a suitable object selection. For this purpose, it is conceivable to measure the attractiveness of a certain product design perceived by this person and to correlate this result with assessments given earlier by this person or also by other people. In this way, an indication can be derived as to which similar embodiment of an object may appear more attractive. For example, the object to be presented subsequently could be the one that felt more attractive to the person with whom the current assessment criterion was most closely correlated. In this way, an assessment process can be controlled in a targeted manner, so that it is also possible to process a large number of objects that have been generated, for example, by an automatic system. In this profitable procedure, the objects could be disregarded where it can already be anticipated that they will not be accepted by the assessor or the selector. When selecting the person whose perception of attractiveness comes closest to the current assessment, in addition to the saved results for the currently presented object, saved assessment results for other objects can also be used in a profitable manner. For example, within a sequence of presentations, all previous objects can always be correlated with their respective person-specific assessment results in order to determine with whom the current subject is in greatest agreement.

The advantageous method for selecting attractive object configurations is connected in a particularly profitable manner to a system for the automatic generation of groups of different object configurations. Such a system could be a CAD system, for example, which automatically generates a large number of object variants, possibly based on database information (for example, vehicle designs that have different wheel sizes and adapted fenders, but which all meet the road traffic regulations). Such systems are generally able to automatically generate a large number of variants from a basic model of an object. The members of a group of designers could evaluate the designs independently of one another, so that afterwards by evaluating the saved evaluation results an optimal product design could be determined. According to this evaluation, it would now also be conceivable to confront another person with the pre-evaluated objects and to check whether this independent person also has the same feeling of attractiveness or acceptance.

Furthermore, in a particularly profitable manner, it is also conceivable to configure the system for the automatic generation of groups of different object designs so that it generates a new object based on the comparison (correlation) of the determined acceptance measures or attractiveness measures of at least the two previously presented objects and makes it available to the assessor. In this way, a kind of control loop is formed between the assessing person and the system generating the objects. During several iteration steps, this leads to the formation of an object which, at least in relation to the one judging person, has the highest neurophysiological acceptance measure or measure of attractiveness.

Another typical, exemplary scenario within the scope of which the method for carrying out acceptance tests can be used profitably is explained below by way of example. As a conceivable goal, the task can be defined to examine different designs of motor vehicle bodies for attractiveness and acceptance. For this purpose, subjects can be presented with images of different categories of vehicles (sports cars, limousines and small cars) visually, in a random order, in order to record fMRI data of the subjects' brains with regard to activation. In a corresponding study with a total of 12 test subjects (age: 31.4 ± 6.9 years), these pictures of different categories of au- tos presents. The image material used has been standardized; that is, the pictures of the vehicles were kept in black and white, the trademarks and license plates were removed and the cars could only be seen from one perspective (diagonally from the left front). Immediately after an image appeared, the subject had to give a rating on a scale from 1-5 (1 = not attractive to 5 = very attractive). After the end of the magnetic resonance imaging, the test persons were interviewed semi-quantitatively. The result of the study shows that the sports cars were rated significantly more attractively than the sedans and small cars. The reaction time from the presentation of the picture to the decision showed no significant differences with regard to the 3 vehicle categories. The fMRI data (functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy) were subjected to a group analysis for inter-individual differences and vehicle categories using SPM (Statistical Parametric Mapping). This showed a significant activation of the right ventral striatum (coordinates according to the Tl-weighted MRI template: x = 9, y = 3, z = -6) left orbitofrontal cortex (x = -3, y = 33, z = - 18), anterior left cingulate gyrus (x = -3, y = 45, z = 12) and in the bilateral prefrontal cortex (right: x = 45, y = 15, z = 30; left: x = -45, y = 3, z = 36). Significant activations were also found in the right fusiform gyrus (x = 30, y = -54, z = -15) and in the left lateral occipital complex (x = -48, y = -78, z = 0).

The activations in the ventral striatum and bilateral orbitofrontal cortex showed a gradation in relation to the vehicle category. Activity was highest for sports cars and lowest for small cars. The degree of attractiveness of the cars thus demonstrably correlates with that Degree of activation in the area of the ventral striatum and the orbitofrontal cortex.

Our investigations show that brain imaging methods, in particular functional magnetic resonance imaging, can be used as an objective measuring instrument for examining the attractiveness of vehicles.

Although an assessment with regard to acceptance or attractiveness essentially relates to real objects, their images or acoustic signals, it is of course also possible to use the invention for the assessment of haptic or olfactory stimuli, for example.

Claims

claims

1. Procedure for carrying out acceptance studies in which a person is to assess the acceptance potential or the attractiveness of an object presented to him,

the brain activity of the assessing person being recorded locally in time and space during the presentation, so that a neurophysiological acceptance measure or a neurophysiological attractiveness measure can be determined on the basis of such a brain imaging method, characterized in that the determined acceptance measure or attractiveness measure with those acceptance or attractiveness measures are correlated, which were determined during the presentation of at least one previous object.

2. The method of claim 1, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that the objects, both real objects, images of such or acoustic signals can be.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the temporal and spatial localization of brain activity by means of a (functional) magnetic resonance ogra- phie, a (functional) magnetic resonance spectroscopy, magnetoenzyphaiography or EEG.

4. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, d a d u r c h g e k e n n z e i c h n e t that, based on the assessment of an object, the object subsequently presented to the assessing person is selected.

5. The method as claimed in one of the preceding claims, so that the ascertained degree of acceptance or attractiveness with respect to a presented object is correlated with previously made assessments of at least this one object.

6. The method according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the determined acceptance measure or attractiveness measure is fed to a system, in particular a CAD system, which is able to automatically generate a large number of variants from a basic model of an object, and wherein This system creates a new object based on the acceptance or attractiveness measures transmitted to it and presents it to the person to be assessed.

7. Device for carrying out acceptance examinations in which a person is to assess the acceptance potential or the attractiveness of an object presented to him, the brain activity being recorded locally in terms of time and space during the presentation, so that on the basis of such a brain imaging method a neurophysiological acceptance measure respectively a neurophysiological measure of attractiveness can be determined, characterized in that a means is provided which, based on the assessment of an object, selects the object subsequently presented to the assessing person.

8. The device according to claim 7, so that the system for the temporal and spatial localization of brain activity comprises a means for (functional) magnetic resonance tomography, (functional) magnetic resonance spectroscopy or for magnetoenzyphalography or EEG.

9. Apparatus according to claim 7 or 8, d a d u r c h g e k e n e z e i c h n e t that in addition a memory unit is provided in which the objects and their associated assessments can be stored.

10. Device according to one of claims 7 to 9, characterized in that the device is connected to a system for the automatic generation of groups of different object configurations, in particular a CAD system, which is capable of a variety of a basic model of an object Generate variants automatically.