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Sentient was created to bring visionary advances from the behavioral sciences to the business community in a practical and accessible form to move global business forward.

We are a globally recognized pioneer in the development of advanced implicit research technology that taps the consumer subconscious and quantifies the impact of emotion on choice. Our technologies are coupled with deep knowledge of behavioral economics, the essence of emotional branding, and quantitative models of the drivers of human behavior to provide deep insight and actionable results for our clients.

Sentient is comprised of people passionate about the application of behavioral science to business, including psychologists; neuroscientists; consumer, shopper and innovation insights leaders; market researchers; statisticians; brand experts, and marketing professionals.


Sentient Decision Science

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We bring visionary advances from the behavioral sciences to the business community in a practical and accessible form to move global business forward.

Emotional Measurement

Implicit Association Research

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Editor’s Note: This subsection is featured in the <a href="https://bit.ly/2UFn62V">GRIT Insights Practice Report</a>. The GRIT Insights Practice Report is your #1 guide to brand success in the insights industry, featuring the GRIT Future List, client perspectives, and emerging methodologies. You’ll learn what’s making strides, what trends are worth following, and where your company fits into it all.
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The most staggering number in the nonconscious measurement chapter is the 11-point growth among Buyers in use of Applied Neuroscience (implicit and timed response). This rate of growth is over 3X the historical annual growth rate of our industry. Building off the Greenbook analysis of the data, we see at least four more factors influencing nonconscious measurement adoption.
First, the numbers represent the percentage of respondents who claim each technique is “in use”, not the percentage of Insights budget captured by these methods. It is quite likely that the use of nonconscious methods is expanding within organizations that have experienced success. This explanation would be more consistent with the growth rates that we, and some of our friendly competitors, have experienced over the past five years. In fact, we usually see clients who try Applied Neuroscience in one application (e.g. Ad testing), turn around and use it in other applications (e.g. package testing, claims testing, <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/marketing-research/concept-testing-uniqueness-paradox-02585">concept testing</a>). Nonconscious providers who are outpacing even these 3X growth rates, are likely capturing a greater proportion of Insights budgets.
Second, Applied Neuroscience is extremely practical to incorporate within existing research paradigms. An Insights VP can significantly upgrade a brand tracker or A&amp;U study by incorporating a 2-minute nonconscious exercise. Since this is quantitative data collected at the individual level, those implicit variables can be used to cut all of the other data in a study, providing immediate insights value.
Third, quick conscious response time techniques are actually much more differentiating than Likert scale questions and are easy for Insights pros to understand and explain to internal stakeholders. This highly important reality is likely driving increased adoption. Respondents enjoy these exercises a lot more than batteries of agree/disagree questions (&gt;80% satisfaction) – especially on mobile devices. If I had my druthers, the industry would take the first step and replace all brand attribute assessment Likert scales with these superior conscious response time-based methods.
Fourth, the 2-point decline in Facial Analysis usage among market research buyers is curious. One factor that is likely playing a role is the outside investment being made in Facial Analysis. After attracting investment, a trend has been to redirect resources to larger opportunities outside of the $46B research industry (e.g. the automotive industry). While this shift in priority makes sense for investors, it is leaving a hole in sales and service to <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/market-research-companies/new-zealand">market research</a>. Early experiences with Facial Analysis, left a lot of questions on why consumers were reacting emotionally. However, the latest advances in Facial Analysis, which combine a change in implicit perceptions with expressions of emotions, provide much more useful explanations of the “why” behind the expressions. We expect that, as market researchers experience the practicality and power of these integrated techniques, adoption of Facial Analysis will increase.
In summary, we see this staggering growth of Applied Neuroscience to be consistent, if not understated, with our experience of the full penetration of these methods.

Applied Neuroscience Outpaces the Growth Rate of the Industry by 3x

Editor’s Note: Every year, participants in the <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/grit">GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) Report</a> survey vote for the most innovative companies in market research. In <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/grit">Insights That Work</a>, these top companies share the real-life challenges and solutions of their biggest clients.
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<h3>Challenge</h3>
The challenge was to help Man Made Music – a global sonic studio that creates iconic music and sound for brands and entertainment companies including AT&amp;T, Nissan, iRobot, MetLife, CBS, ESPN, Disney, and IMAX – put effectiveness at the forefront of creativity by measuring the impact of music and sound. Man Made Music’s work is guided by Sonic Humanism™, the belief that the strategic implementation or removal of sound can make our lives both richer and simpler. We needed to help their proprietary SonicPulse® Research offering bring more sensitive and actionable, quantitative measures to their work 
and their clients.
<h3>Solution</h3>
Methodologies designed by Sentient for Man Made Music’s SonicPulse® Research offering include innovative applications of Sentient Prime® Implicit Association and Response Latency techniques to understand subconscious associations and intuitive responses to sounds. We’ve also incorporated eye tracking, CLT-based experience evaluation, discrete choice, and traditional conscious measures to assess meaning and emotional impact, and how they drive behavioral outcomes. These approaches are applied to sonic creative development for brand identity, UX/UI and everyday experiences like shopping, banking, broadcast media, and interacting with products and devices.
Our work has enabled development of a quantitative Sonic Humanism Spectrum—a unified database of discrete sounds and sonic environments spanning every level of emotional-motivational impact, from the least- to most-appealing natural sounds, that serves as the reference scale for judging impacts of new and existing designed sounds. This objective research tool allows us to answer questions like: “Is your sonic logo or product sound closer to the most attractive natural sounds, like baby laughter or birds chirping, or does it affect consumers more like nails on a chalkboard or a pained scream?” We quantified the behavioral impacts of these sounds, demonstrating an 86% correlation between how a sound makes you feel subconsciously and your conscious desire to have that experience again or avoid it.
<h3>Outcome</h3>
We’re now able to help Man Made Music quantify the benefits of Sonic Humanism™ and prove the value of their approach for creating the most effective and impactful music and sound for brand, product and entertainment experiences. This has increased demand for Man Made’s services and more than doubled the use of SonicPulse® Research in their client work. In fact, SonicPulse® Research is used in nearly all their most innovative projects, including recent work designing the future sound of electric vehicles for Nissan, balancing safety with iconic brand attribution.
It’s also been used to demonstrate the value of Man Made Music’s sonic design principles and creative work for emerging technologies like Voice Assistants (e.g. Amazon Echo). It’s evaluated the development of soundscapes created for environments that require focus, anxiety relief, motivation, and increased productivity. And it’s used in the creation and assessment of sonics for brands like AT&amp;T, MetLife, and Citi. This exclusive capability is a significant step in advancing sonic design principles to improve life experiences and business outcomes.

Measuring the Subconscious Impact of Sound to Improve Sonic Appeal & Drive Behavior

In graduate school I read an article that changed my thinking about how the mind works. It was called “<a href="https://acmelab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/1999_the_unbearable_automaticity_of_being.pdf">The Unbearable Automaticity of Being</a>.” by Tanya Chartrand and John Bargh. In the article they reveal evidence of how the mind forms associations automatically, and how the automatic activation of associations can lead directly to behavior without conscious control.
Five years later, Strack and Deutsch published “<a href="https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/_temp_/02strack_und_deutsch.pdf">Reflective and Impulsive Determinants of Social Behavior</a>.” A dual process theory of cognitive processing, better known today as System 1 and System 2. Of course, we all know System 1 and System 2 references from Kahneman’s popular book Thinking Fast and Slow, a review of the last 40 years of decision science research, published in 2011. In fact, the theory is so compelling that in 2017 <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/marketing-research/BrainJuicer-Partnership-With-ZappiStore-1015414">Brain Juicer</a> decided to re-brand as the System 1 agency.
Let’s start with System 1 processing that refers to the automatic rise and activation of associations in the non-conscious mind. Stimuli automatically activate emotional associations in your mind. That is one of the functions of emotion. It is a memory cementing mechanism – and it’s highly adaptive.
Automating a behavioral response allows us to navigate our world more efficiently. Imagine if you had to “think” about what to do when you saw a snake slithering toward your feet. Or if you had to reflectively “decide” whether to comfort a crying baby. We would have decision paralysis.
<h4>Automaticity Enables Empathy</h4>
We’re going to make the following argument: Automaticity in the human mind gives rise to Sentience. Sentience is the foundation for human empathy. Automaticity enables empathy.
Automaticity isn’t a nice to have – it’s a requirement for higher order cognition. Automaticity in the human mind frees up resources for higher level thinking and gives us the luxury of sentience.
The automation of market research processes frees up our insights resources for higher level thinking. It frees us up to engage in deeper processing of data and deriving meaning. It enables us to have greater empathy for the consumer and for our clients.
<h4>Automation of Behavioral Science </h4>
Fortunately, this is already happening in our industry. The global scaling of eye-tracking methods has seen the production of incredible technology. Algorithms for detecting emotional expression in the face have led to globally scaled Facial Coding technology. Implicit research technology has taken implicit association testing out of the lab and into mobile devices. Allowing us to measure human automaticity in the mind anywhere in the world.
<h4>A Lasting Impact </h4>
We’re putting forth the argument that cool measures, the automation of individual behavioral science techniques, is not enough. We need to turn these techniques into systematic research approaches that are founded in sound scientific theory. 
When you look at the advanced research approaches over the last 10-20 years that not only broke through but that had staying power, you’ll see that they have sound theory as their basis. This theory is independent of the measures used to test it. For example, TNS Needstate analysis is founded in a fundamental theory of how human connections are made. The measures within it could use updating, but the theory has staying power. FaceTrace from BrainJuicer had a significant impact on shifting attention to the measurement of emotion. Now the measure itself is rather blunt, and certainly subject to conscious control, but the approach is based in sound theory, Paul Ekman’s 7 human universal emotions. That foundation has given that research staying power.
What if we didn’t have to choose between good theory and cool new measures? Could we combine the two? Could we produce products that were automated, provided deep accurate insight, and had staying power in the industry? We argue that, yes, we can.
<h4>Let’s Do This Together</h4>
Together we can elevate our industry to new heights. To the <a href="https://www.greenbook.org/market-research-companies/united-states-of-america">research companies</a>, let’s partner and bring technology and sound science together. To clients, please keep demanding more from your partners, validated methods, deeper insights and faster delivery. If we can automate behavioral science, we have the power to increase empathy for the human condition.

The Fastest Way to the Deepest Insights: The Automation of Behavioral Science

We bring visionary advances from the behavioral sciences to the business
community in a practical and accessible form to move global business forward. Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States of America.

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While SKIM’s expertise is sophisticated, its mission is simple; in a world of constant change, SKIM partners with leading companies worldwide looking to elevate their pricing, brand communication and innovation strategies with greater precision and certainty.&nbsp;SKIM’s success stems from decades of experience in modelling human decision-making and driving behavioral change. Underpinning this is the belief that to develop impactful strategies, SKIM must combine a deep understanding of a client’s customer with a sound knowledge of their business.&nbsp;Through open dialogue, SKIM uncovers the real challenges, considerations and perspectives of the different stakeholders. SKIM’s consultants then apply their expertise, analytical rigor and curious minds to provide tailored solutions that are reliable and relevant.Navigating towards strategies that are right for you.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Global insight-based consultants helping leading companies optimize their marketing strategies.

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