Neuroscience technology could soon appear in retail stores to support customer decisions, especially when consumers are overwhelmed by choice, according to Neuroscientist, Dr Phil Harris. The technology appeared in Japanese retailer, Uniqlo, last week as the company matched clothing to the mood of the consumer.
The technology has already been applied to the gaming industry, where players control the game by thinking rather than using a controller, according to Harris.
“We might even see the devices in the home that can be controlled by thought,” Dr Harris told Appliance Retailer.
“EEG technology (electroencephalogram) has sparked a lot of interest in developing EEG-based tools that allow users to control all sorts of devices via thought simply for fun, such as a thought controlled toy helicopter, or to actually help disabled people in a wheelchair.
“As the technology gets better at decoding brain activity responses we could see EEG technology appearing in a whole range of settings including education, to assist the user gain valuable feedback about whether their current state of mind is helping or hindering learning; road safety, to indicate when a driver is getting drowsy, and of course in a whole range of stores to support customer decisions,” he said.