Blink, Blink Making me Think! - Math and Science of Neuromarketing

Overview

Students connect statistics and digital media through neuromarketing, the study of physiological signals in how people respond to advertising. The unit opens with a stare-down tournament, followed by guided notes on a video about blinking and practice collecting blink-rate data during cognitive tasks of different intensity. Students then take notes on a neuromarketing video and use a PhET Center and Variability simulation to study mean, median, mode, and spread. Over about eight weeks they design a 45-second animated marketing video with a character discussing a new tech product, delivering sketches, a script, the video, and slides scored with a rubric. An extension repeats the blink-rate test on the videos. Engage, Explore, and Explain activities run 20 to 80 minutes each, and the Elaborate project takes eight weeks.

Lesson Objectives

• “Neuromarketing is the science behind measuring physiological and neural signals to gain insight into customers’ motivations, preferences, and decisions, which can help inform creative advertising, product development, pricing, and other marketing areas” (Harrel, 2019). Students will elaborate on the principles of Neuromarketing to design and create marketing material that would be ‘pilot tested’ with their peers. Students will then demonstrate an applied understanding of how descriptive statistics, such as mean, median, mode, central tendency, and variability, determine the degree of correlation between a person's physiological response while testing the student-created Neuromarketing animation videos.
• CAN STATEMENTS.
• I can recognize a statistical question as one that expects different answers and takes that variability into account.
• I can understand that data collected to answer a statistical question has a distribution, which can be described by its center, spread, and overall shape.
• I can recognize that a measure of center for a numerical data set summarizes all of its values with a single number, while a measure of variation describes how its values vary with a single number.
• I can effectively use layers to organize and manage different elements of my animation, ensuring each component is editable and interacts optimally with others.
• I can create and modify paths to guide the movement of objects in my animation, resulting in smooth and purposeful motion graphics.
• I can adjust the speed and timing of visual effects to enhance the storytelling and visual impact of my animation.
• I can use keying to isolate elements from their background and compositing to combine visual elements into cohesive scenes, enhancing the overall quality of my animation.
• I can design reusable templates that streamline the production process in video editing, ensuring consistency and efficiency in my project workflow.
• I can employ various camera angles and perspectives in my animation to effectively convey the story and engage the audience.
• I can manipulate lighting within my animation to enhance mood, depth, and realism, thereby increasing the visual appeal of my scenes.
• I can create and animate a basic 3D scene, applying fundamental 3D animation techniques to add dimensionality and engagement to my project.
• DRIVING QUESTIONS.
• Have you ever noticed someone blinking their eyes frequently when concentrating on a task?
• Could there be a connection between how much someone blinks and how hard their brain works?
• How could a person’s blinking rate reveal their thoughts as they watch a marketing video?