Social issues vs commercial advertising, differences in psychophysiological activation during multimedial artefact fruition

This study aimed to investigate differences in neurophysiological activation during different types of multimedial artefact fruition. In particular we wanted to verify cortical activation during the vision of both social issues and commercial advertising videos. 10 videos of 30 seconds of duration were presented to a sample of 15 healthy subjects. Half of them was commercial advertising videos and the other half dealed with social issue. Advertising videos were selected identifying 5 cathegories comparable by a commercial or pro-social point of view, and they were: money, health, technology, nutrition and clothing. During videos vision, cortical and physiological activation were recorded by electroencephalography and biofeedback. Data showed an increasing of Alpha power in central brain areas, greater during social issue advertising fruition and a higher Delta power in frontal brain areas for social issue advertising except for nutrition category, in wich there is a greater activation for commercial advertising. Physiological data showed an increasing of heartbeat during commercial advertising fruition, in particular for money, technology and nutrition cathegories. Data suggest a grater disposition to action and involvement in subjects due to commercial advertising features. This is showed by heartbeat increasing during commercial videos and alpha band incrising in central areas while whatching prosocial videos, that means a de-activation of central areas, involved in movement and tension to action. During social issue advertising, instead, we can see an activation of frontal area, linked to motivation processes. Finally, starting by the point that frontal lobe is related to evolved social functions linked to adaptation to social environment, we could imagine that commercial advertising touches more ancestral and instinctual processes related to movement and action, with lower central Alpha power; social issue advertising, on the other side, with higher frontal Delta power, activates higher functions related to motivation, adaptation to the environment, and thus to prosociality.