Consumers' Cognitive, Emotional and Behavioral Responses towards Background Music: An EEG Study

The physical environment affects individuals emotionally, behaviorally and cognitively. Servicescapes or atmospherics studies the effect of environmental stimulation to consumers. Environmental stimuli affect consumers’ attention and cause them emotions such as pleasure and arousal; those emotional responses affect in turn consumers’ behavioral responses such us approach and avoidance tendencies towards the environment. Hence, the level of arousal-nonarousal and the pleasure-displeasure experienced by a consumer along with other intervening variables such as momentary mood and stimulus screening ability will determine his/her approach-avoidance responses towards the environmental stimuli. The paper studies atmospherics with neuromarketing and conventional marketing research methods: Specifically, using electroencephalography (EEG) and surveys, it focuses on the effect of background music on Consumer’s arousal, pleasure, attention and approach/avoidance tendencies. The results are expected to have significant academic relevance both for the servicescapes / atmospherics and the neuromarketing / consumer neuroscience research streams of literature and also managerial implications.

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