Thought leadership13
The four signals of human response
Neural, linguistic, cultural, historical. Anyone predicting with one family hits a ceiling. Anyone who integrates all four crosses it.
11 min readRead
OpenAffect Research
Insights on predicting human response to content
A research program on neural encoding, signal fusion, and the methodology behind OpenAffect. 18 briefs, all published.
18 published/18 total briefs
Canonical anchor
All insights
Science05
What is neuromarketing in 2026? (And why most of what you have read is wrong)
Neuromarketing is two categories that share a name. One earned its skeptics. The other has not yet earned its believers. Treat them differently.
12 min readRead
Thought leadership12
Focus groups at scale are still focus groups
A million synthetic panelists is still qualitative research. Behavioral prediction gets good the same way weather forecasting did: signal fusion, not sensor scale.
13 min readRead
Thought leadership14
Why we chose to publish our research
Every company claims their predictions work. Very few publish enough to let anyone check. We publish because that is the only way this field stops repeating the last twenty years.
7 min readRead
Market02
Synthetic respondents vs focus groups: what actually replaces what in 2026
Synthetic panels replace specific focus-group functions. They do not replace novel stimuli or edge cases. The winning stack uses both.
13 min readRead
Methodology03
How to test a video ad before you publish it
A four-tier framework for pre-launch creative testing, mapped to budget thresholds and decision risk.
10 min readRead
Market04
The complete guide to creative intelligence platforms in 2026
VidMob, CreativeX, Marpipe, Memorable, and a capabilities matrix for buyers. Useful tools, but a rear-view mirror.
14 min readRead
Market06
How much does a focus group cost in 2026? (With real numbers)
Real prices by format and geography. Standard US groups still run $6K to $12K each. Synthetic is cheaper but not the same thing.
9 min readRead
Methodology07
A framework for pre-publication content scoring
Why predictive scoring should fuse four signal families and what each one covers that the others cannot.
13 min readRead
Science01
TRIBE v2 explained: what Meta's brain encoding model actually does
The first production-grade, open-sourced foundation model for predicting brain response to video. Not a decoder, not a neuromarketing product, the start of commodity behavioral prediction infrastructure.
12 min readRead
Science08
Emily Falk's neural focus group, fifteen years later
The 2012 finding that small-n fMRI predicts population behavior held up. Encoding models now let you run the same paradigm in-silico.
9 min readRead
Science09
What is neuroforecasting?
Using small-sample neural data to predict aggregate population behavior. A formalized discipline since 2017, with fifteen years of evidence across crowdfunding, microlending, media, and public health.
7 min readRead
Market10
The Meta Ad Library is a gold mine. Here is how to actually use it.
The richest public ad record ever assembled. Ninety percent of marketers miss the value. API access, research uses, and third-party tooling, with the methodological warnings.
11 min readRead
Market11
Creative testing benchmarks: what "good" looks like across paid social
A composite benchmark from WordStream, Databox, Revealbot, and Varos. What good performance actually looks like by platform, industry, objective, and frequency.
14 min readRead
Thought leadership15
Predicting the future is signal integration, not magic
Every prediction system that works is a signal-integration system. Weather. Medicine. Chess. Protein folding. Cultural prediction is newer, not different.
13 min readRead
Research16
Calibrating neural engagement predictions against Meta Ad Library performance
Original calibration study. Honest error bars. Failure modes published with successes.
15 min readRead
Research17
A technical review of brain encoding models for content prediction
TRIBE v2, MindEye, MindEye2, Huth Lab, Algonauts. A neutral reviewer's map of the 2026 applied encoding stack.
16 min readRead
Research18
Reverse inference, twenty years on: why forward prediction is the right methodology
Poldrack's 2006 critique was correct. Most neuromarketing ignored it. Forward-prediction frames route around the problem.
12 min readRead
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