MediaScience is the leading provider of lab-based media and advertising research, incorporating a range of neuro-measures including biometrics, facial expression analysis, eye tracking, EEG, and more. With state-of-the-art labs in New York, Chicago, and Austin, MediaScience is discovering actionable insights in advertising, technology, media, and consumer trends.

Dr. Duane Varan, the global authority of neuromarketing research, founded Audience Labs (formerly the Interactive Television Research Institute) during his tenure at Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, in 2001. In 2005, he launched the Beyond : 30 Project, a consortium exploring the changing media and advertising landscape, and in 2008, he was approached by Disney Media Networks to set up a dedicated custom research lab on a broader scale – and so MediaScience was born. Though he officially left Murdoch in 2015, he continues to maintain some research links with the University of South Australia and has been widely recognised for his innovative contributions to teaching and the neuromarketing industry as evidenced by a long list of awards and over 90 published academic papers in his field.

Below is an abstract from a paper that Dr. Varan oversaw about Designing marketplaces of the artificial with consumers in mind: Four approaches to understanding consumer behavior in electronic environments
from the Journal of Interactive Marketing.

Abstract:

Marketers face a myriad of decisions when developing a Web site for e-commerce. In this article, we attempt to organize our current understanding of consumer behavior into streams of research that address the development of marketplaces for the digital economy. We start by characterizing computer-based decision environments as Marketplaces of the Artificial, arguing that the unbundling of product information from products presents many decisions and opportunities for the design of decision environments. We then review four areas of research, identifying themes in each area. These areas are (a) the economics of search, (b) cognitive cost approaches, (c) constructed preference approaches, and (d) phenomenological approaches. We illustrate each approach, highlighting its assumptions and discussing examples of research questions and results.

Citation:

Bellman, S., Johnson, E. J., Lohse, G. L., & Mandel, N. (2006). Designing marketplaces of the artificial with consumers in mind: Four approaches to understanding consumer behavior in electronic environments. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 20(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1002/dir.20053