CONCLUSION
Adding neuroscientific methods to the researcher’s tool kit will inevitably lead to richer insights about consumer behavior and marketing in general. Drawing on neuroscience is expected to yield several tangible benefits —for example, opportunities and guidelines to facilitate theoretical development; new empirical tests of standard theoretical claims; explanations for observed heterogeneity within and across consumer groups; and novel mechanisms for considering the physiological context and the role of numerous biological factors, including hormones and genes, on consumer preferences and decisions.
Going forward, we expect neuroscience research in marketing to continue to generate important insights that link specific brain processes and mechanisms to both unobservable intermediate concepts (e.g., traits, beliefs, goals) and observable behavior (e.g., choices, search). Advances in neuroscience and computational techniques have enabled the use of a diverse set of methodological approaches. Notably, fMRI and EEG can measure neural activity associated with specific mental processes without having to ask consumers what they are processing or which mental systems are engaged. Of course, each method (including other physiological methods, e.g., eye tracking, biometrics) has unique advantages and disadvantages in terms of what can be measured and the inferences to be drawn. (These relative strengths and weaknesses have been detailed elsewhere; see, e.g., Kable 2011.)
The articles in this special issue speak to the variety of neuroscientific approaches and methods that can be used to answer marketing-related questions. In particular, they both demonstrate and explicate how researchers can benefit from applying a mix of neuroscientific and behavioral perspectives to develop and test richer models and to generate insights that are ultimately valuable for not only academic scholars but consumers and practitioners as well. We would like to thank all the authors who responded to our call for papers in this special issue. We are especially grateful to the authors of the articles in this special issue and to the many anonymous reviewers who provided suggestions. We also appreciate that the authors put in extra effort to make technical details and interpretation accessible to Journal o fMarketing Research readers. We are excited about the new research paradigms that are now possible, and we hope that readers will share our enthusiasm.