Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie Trailers
The ability to anticipate the population-wide response of a target audience to a new movie or TV series, before its release, is critical to the film industry. Equally important is the ability to understand the underlying factors that drive or characterize viewer’s decision to watch a movie. Traditio...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media S.A.
2017-12-01
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| Series: | Frontiers in Neuroinformatics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fninf.2017.00072/full |
| _version_ | 1818305396540964864 |
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| author | Christoforos Christoforou Christoforos Christoforou Timothy C. Papadopoulos Timothy C. Papadopoulos Fofi Constantinidou Fofi Constantinidou Maria Theodorou |
| author_facet | Christoforos Christoforou Christoforos Christoforou Timothy C. Papadopoulos Timothy C. Papadopoulos Fofi Constantinidou Fofi Constantinidou Maria Theodorou |
| author_sort | Christoforos Christoforou |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The ability to anticipate the population-wide response of a target audience to a new movie or TV series, before its release, is critical to the film industry. Equally important is the ability to understand the underlying factors that drive or characterize viewer’s decision to watch a movie. Traditional approaches (which involve pilot test-screenings, questionnaires, and focus groups) have reached a plateau in their ability to predict the population-wide responses to new movies. In this study, we develop a novel computational approach for extracting neurophysiological electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-gaze based metrics to predict the population-wide behavior of movie goers. We further, explore the connection of the derived metrics to the underlying cognitive processes that might drive moviegoers’ decision to watch a movie. Towards that, we recorded neural activity—through the use of EEG—and eye-gaze activity from a group of naive individuals while watching movie trailers of pre-selected movies for which the population-wide preference is captured by the movie’s market performance (i.e., box-office ticket sales in the US). Our findings show that the neural based metrics, derived using the proposed methodology, carry predictive information about the broader audience decisions to watch a movie, above and beyond traditional methods. In particular, neural metrics are shown to predict up to 72% of the variance of the films’ performance at their premiere and up to 67% of the variance at following weekends; which corresponds to a 23-fold increase in prediction accuracy compared to current neurophysiological or traditional methods. We discuss our findings in the context of existing literature and hypothesize on the possible connection of the derived neurophysiological metrics to cognitive states of focused attention, the encoding of long-term memory, and the synchronization of different components of the brain’s rewards network. Beyond the practical implication in predicting and understanding the behavior of moviegoers, the proposed approach can facilitate the use of video stimuli in neuroscience research; such as the study of individual differences in attention-deficit disorders, and the study of desensitization to media violence. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-13T06:25:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-6a781bc725634e2c9c6f68e11429a2f9 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1662-5196 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-13T06:25:56Z |
| publishDate | 2017-12-01 |
| publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Frontiers in Neuroinformatics |
| spelling | doaj.art-6a781bc725634e2c9c6f68e11429a2f92022-12-21T23:56:43ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Neuroinformatics1662-51962017-12-011110.3389/fninf.2017.00072275131Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie TrailersChristoforos Christoforou0Christoforos Christoforou1Timothy C. Papadopoulos2Timothy C. Papadopoulos3Fofi Constantinidou4Fofi Constantinidou5Maria Theodorou6Division of Computer Science, Mathematics and Science, St. John’s University, New York, NY, United StatesDivision of Research and Development, R.K.I Leaders Ltd., Larnaca, CyprusCenter for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CyprusDepartment of Psychology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CyprusCenter for Applied Neuroscience, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CyprusDepartment of Psychology, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, CyprusDivision of Research and Development, R.K.I Leaders Ltd., Larnaca, CyprusThe ability to anticipate the population-wide response of a target audience to a new movie or TV series, before its release, is critical to the film industry. Equally important is the ability to understand the underlying factors that drive or characterize viewer’s decision to watch a movie. Traditional approaches (which involve pilot test-screenings, questionnaires, and focus groups) have reached a plateau in their ability to predict the population-wide responses to new movies. In this study, we develop a novel computational approach for extracting neurophysiological electroencephalography (EEG) and eye-gaze based metrics to predict the population-wide behavior of movie goers. We further, explore the connection of the derived metrics to the underlying cognitive processes that might drive moviegoers’ decision to watch a movie. Towards that, we recorded neural activity—through the use of EEG—and eye-gaze activity from a group of naive individuals while watching movie trailers of pre-selected movies for which the population-wide preference is captured by the movie’s market performance (i.e., box-office ticket sales in the US). Our findings show that the neural based metrics, derived using the proposed methodology, carry predictive information about the broader audience decisions to watch a movie, above and beyond traditional methods. In particular, neural metrics are shown to predict up to 72% of the variance of the films’ performance at their premiere and up to 67% of the variance at following weekends; which corresponds to a 23-fold increase in prediction accuracy compared to current neurophysiological or traditional methods. We discuss our findings in the context of existing literature and hypothesize on the possible connection of the derived neurophysiological metrics to cognitive states of focused attention, the encoding of long-term memory, and the synchronization of different components of the brain’s rewards network. Beyond the practical implication in predicting and understanding the behavior of moviegoers, the proposed approach can facilitate the use of video stimuli in neuroscience research; such as the study of individual differences in attention-deficit disorders, and the study of desensitization to media violence.http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fninf.2017.00072/fullEEGeye-trackingneuro-cinematicsneuro-marketingfilm test screeningpilot test screening |
| spellingShingle | Christoforos Christoforou Christoforos Christoforou Timothy C. Papadopoulos Timothy C. Papadopoulos Fofi Constantinidou Fofi Constantinidou Maria Theodorou Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie Trailers Frontiers in Neuroinformatics EEG eye-tracking neuro-cinematics neuro-marketing film test screening pilot test screening |
| title | Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie Trailers |
| title_full | Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie Trailers |
| title_fullStr | Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie Trailers |
| title_full_unstemmed | Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie Trailers |
| title_short | Your Brain on the Movies: A Computational Approach for Predicting Box-office Performance from Viewer’s Brain Responses to Movie Trailers |
| title_sort | your brain on the movies a computational approach for predicting box office performance from viewer s brain responses to movie trailers |
| topic | EEG eye-tracking neuro-cinematics neuro-marketing film test screening pilot test screening |
| url | http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fninf.2017.00072/full |
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