ON THE USE OF PHYSIOLOGICAL TESTS IN CONSUMER RESEARCH

Surveys and questionnaires are frequently used by marketing researchers to understand consumer behaviour. Self report measures, obtained by using these methods, are not always reliable because, many times, consumers do not know the real reasons for their actions and, even if they know, they are often unable to express them in response to a specific question. Phisyological tests concern a series of laboratory techniques involving the Instrumental detection of messages sent from the human body. The basic principle is that to any change in individual physiological state is associated a change in mental and emotional state. If consumers respondents may be little sincere, the body does never lie, also because many physiological reactions are not under the control of the individual. For these reasons autonomic measures obtained using these methods can be more reliable than self report measures. In this paper we summarize and evaluate three different laboratory techniques cited in marketing literature: skin conductance measurement, eyetracking analysis and brain imaging. We compare these methodologies placing special emphasis on strengths and weaknesses of each, considering also the cost of the equipment and amount of specific knowledge needed to run such experiments and analyzing data. Our main purpose is to offer some guidelines to marketing practitioners in the use of such methodologies. We like also to stimulate practitioner and academic interest in further researching the application of physiological methods in evaluating consumer behaviour