Biometric Measures as Tools for Investigating the Embodied Mind “on” Advertising: The Importance of Grounding Research in the Psychophysiology Paradigm

Advertising research utilizing biometric measures dates to the 1970s. This specialized area of research has tremendously grown over the years due to high interest among both academic and industry researchers. A challenge to the maturity of this area of research addressed in this article is variation in the extent to which researchers clearly ground their work in a strong scientific paradigm leading to rigorous concept explication of biometric measures as embodied mental processes. In this article the unique importance of a strong paradigm for advertising research using biometric measures is discussed, and psychophysiology—specifically media psychophysiology—is introduced as a strong paradigm for researchers to ground their work. A brief review of advertising research using biometric measures is presented, several promising theoretical approaches for advertising research using biometric measures are offered, and suggestions for advertising researchers are provided.