Researchers at the University of South Florida can now access futuristic eye-tracking glasses and brain-activity monitoring headgear to study consumer reactions at a new artificial intelligence lab.
The Behavioral AI Lab has been in operation since 2023 but was formally launched for researchers across the university in January. The lab is housed at the Center for Marketing and Sales Innovation Customer Experience Lab. It cost the school more than seven figures to host and staff the space.
“We’re one of the larger labs with these kinds of sensors that exist in the world, anywhere,” said Robert Hammond, a professor and director at the center. “And getting that to operate at scale requires a little bit of effort to make all the pieces fit together and operate properly.”
The lab is a collection of 20 stations and monitoring equipment that use biometric sensors and AI to understand consumer behavior. Gadgets, like cutting-edge glasses or headsets, use biometric sensors to track voice intonation, eye movement, facial expressions, skin reactions and brain activity. It’s all a means to study online and in-person marketing materials.
Researchers from each USF campus can access the lab.
One such project, which gained early access to the lab, was by recent USF graduate Jill Schiefelbein. She leveraged the lab’s eye-tracking tech to test whether consumers trust video messages delivered by digital avatars.
Dipayan Biswas, a researcher and endowed marketing professor at USF, has performed similar behavioral science at USF. His research on consumer preferences has been covered in national outlets like the Wall Street Journal, and he recently published a study showing that people prefer curved website design over sharp edges.
There is overlap between his research domain and the new lab’s examination of stimulus and interpreting behavior, Hammond said.
“Those are behavior type researchers,” Hammond said. “So artificial intelligence behavior research is looking at what types of stimuli are we talking about, in the sense of is it generated artificially or is it a real person who’s doing that work?”
The campus investment adds a research and learning opportunity for students and academics, but the lab also helps uncover practical ways to use these AI technologies for the business world, Hammond said.
“There are so many important questions to be answered about how we use AI and AI’s implications for business and society,” Hammond said. “We are just getting started.”
