TV commercial and rTMS: can brain lateralization give us information about consumer preference?

The current research aimed at investigating the brain lateralization effect in response to TV advertising of different commercial sectors. This study explored the effects of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) stimulation on subjective evaluation (semantic differential), in response to some consumer goods. We adopted rTMS (low-frequency 1Hz on left and right DLPFC) to modulate the consumers’ (N= thirty-three) response during the vision of five commercials. After three hours from the first evaluation of TV commercials without stimulation, rTMS was delivered in brain frontal areas (F3 and F4 areas) before the vision of each stimulus. Following the stimulation, subjects evaluated advertising a second time by using the same semantic differential. An increase of TV commercials preference occurred in subjects who were inhibited on right DLPFC; while a decrease of advertising preference was shown in subjects who were inhibited on left DLPFC. These results reveal the important role of DLPFC for emotions’ elaboration. In particular, the left and right DLPFC seem to be related respectively to positive and negative evaluation of emotional stimuli.