Facebook is building its own neuroscience lab for the study of marketing

Mark ZuckerbergFacebook is looking to branch out into neuroscience in order to help advertisers, publishers, brands and tech companies get the most out of their content across devices and platforms.

The social network is in the midst of creating its own lab in Manhattan, New York called the Center for Marketing Science Innovation, according to a report from Ad Week. The lab, and its neuroscientists, will study users in a variety of different settings – which have been designed to mimic common viewing environments – and see how they respond to tasks such as scrolling through their news feeds or while watching shows.

The lab will monitor and measure the users’ biometric data through eye tracking, skin response, heart rate and facial expression, all in the hope of gaining a deeper understanding of how well-received certain types of content are in a variety of formats.

“A lot of what we don’t understand is where people’s eyes are going when they’re on the platform,” said Daniel Slotwiner, director of advertising research at Facebook, speaking to Ad Week. “We know how much time people are spending on the platform, so this is really about how that time is spent and what features on our product they’re looking at.”

For the time being the lab will focus predominantly on mobile consumption, but Facebook will likely study other mediums ‘in the future’ as well.