The world’s first research on how the human brain responds to digital advertising, particularly mobile, finds that the majority (67 percent) of ads are seen and registered in just four tenths of a second, states a post by Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, in AdAge.

What’s more, states Stuart, “viewers experience initial attraction and repulsion impulses within the same amount of time—and reject ads faster than they embrace them. This is particularly true of video ads.

“To determine how soon an ad registers in the brain, Neurons and MediaScience (commissioned by the Mobile Marketing Association in conjunction with the Advertising Research Foundation’s Radical Transparency Program) measured the brain activity of nearly 1,000 people. They gauged brain activity at 20 millisecond (two-hundredths of a second) intervals, tracking both attention and cognition—the processing of information and approach or avoidance. Then they measured participants’ responses to the first three seconds of ads that had proven effective, or ineffective, via other brand research measurement methods. They found that the overwhelming majority of ads that failed began to alienate viewers well before the first second had elapsed.”

More here.