There are vendors who genuinely specialize in implicit, association-based research, but not all vendors who say they “do implicit” are doing the same thing, or even doing it themselves. In practice, many full-service research firms design the study and quietly outsource the implicit component to a specialized provider. That model can work very well, when everyone is transparent. The risk isn’t outsourcing. The risk is opacity.

Now in thinking about the upcoming list of conferences I think that rather than asking “What’s the best conference?”, I think the better question is:
“What kind of thinking do I want to be exposed to right now?”

When I left corporate life and started Nerdoscientist just over a year and a half ago, I didn’t have a perfect business model, a 10-step plan, or a clever tagline. What I did have was 20 years of experience doing this strange but wonderful job at the intersection of neuroscience, psychology, sensory science, and consumer research, and a strong desire to keep doing the parts that actually mattered.

As a PhD neuroscientist, I spend a lot of time talking about data—implicit scores, EEG signals, physiological readouts, statistical significance. But before any of that, I often find myself recommending something far less flashy: good old qualitative research.

Why? Because the hardest part of a study isn't usually the measurement. It’s figuring out what to measure—and why.

In this post, we take a more methodical look at how to study consumer experience with beauty devices. Not just satisfaction, but emotional engagement, habit formation, and long-term adherence. Here’s how behavioral neuroscience can guide more meaningful evaluation and insight generation in this fast-growing space.

At its core, framing taps into how our brains process information. Humans are not entirely rational decision-makers. Instead, we’re influenced by cognitive biases, which shape how we interpret and respond to information.