• CNET News.com, Tuesday, August 21, 2007 11 AM

In order to make a first-person shooter that could compete with "Call of Duty 2", video game publisher THQ hired a technology firm to measure game testers' response to its new title "Frontlines." THQ had tech firm EmSense measure their brain wave, heart rate and perspiration rate as they played the game.

Is that data more reliable than what the testers said? Does "emotion sensing" know more about what you do or don't like? Well, one way of measuring the results is to see how well the game sells when it hits shelves in 1Q 2008. If it proves successful, we may be looking at the future of market research.

The advertising industry should be watching with bated breath to see how the "emotion sensing" test pans out. "Consumer advertising largely doesn't shape your subconscious behavior," said Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. But "this kind of technology may give us a clue," Keltner said. Two questions remain: How do we know the technology is comprehensive? And how expensive will it be?

Read the whole story at CNET News.com »