75 percent of movies released to theaters lose money, making the film industry even less able to pick winners in the private sector than the government. Surely there has to be a better method than greenlighting a movie because another studio is doing the same movie, or because someone has heard of M. Night Shyamalan.

A new study finds that brain activity visible through electroencephalography (EEG) could be a better barometer of success, at least if making money is the goal. 

For the study, the authors sat participants in comfortable chairs in a darkened room in front of a computer screen with a pair of speakers and an EEG machines. They viewed 18 movie trailers in random order while their brain activity was recorded. After watching each trailer, the participants were asked to rate how much they liked the trailer they'd just seen, and how much they'd be willing to pay for a DVD of each film.

If studio executives had read the script for "John Carter" while hooked up to an EEG machine rather than agreeing with their boss at Disney, it might have ended a lot differently for them. Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris was perfect casting, however. Credit: Walt Disney Pictures

Finally, after they had watched all 18 trailers, study subjects were presented with the DVDS for the 18 films. The authors asked viewers to sort the DVDs by preference, and participants were given the three DVDs they most preferred. The study found that the EEG readings were notably more accurate than the participants' conscious statements in predicting which film the participant would actually choose.

"Several decades of research have shown that many important mental processes occur below the surface of consciousness, leaving people very limited in their ability to predict their own future behavior," write authors Maarten A. S. Boksem and Ale Smidts of Erasmus University. "This study suggests that neuroimaging technologies such as EEG machines can reveal information that is not obtainable through conventional marketing surveys."

"This study has shown that compared to traditional surveys, EEG machines capture more accurate and complete information regarding what the consumer will actually do. EEG tests are relatively cheap, and even a modest increase in ability to predict consumer choice is likely to be of immeasurable value to marketers," conclude the authors.

Article: Maarten A. S. Boksem and Ale Smidts, "Brain Responses to Movie-trailers Predict Individual Preferences for Movies and Their Population-wide Commercial Success," Journal of Marketing Research.