The relatively new field of neuromarketing and the role emotions play in the decision-making process emerged as a popular source of enquiry for Warc readers in 2013.

Neuromarketing expert Thom Noble's focus on neuroscience in practice, originally published in Admap, was by far the most-read article on this subject.

His paper looked at the methods currently in day-to-day use for measuring non-articulated or pre-conscious consumer response and assessed the three main techniques according to their pros and cons, their usage and costs.

For more details about the most read papers on Warc in 2013 on other topics, visit our Most Read page.

How to recognise non-rational influences on consumer behaviour and determining the ways in which emotion affects the decision-making process formed the basis of the second most-read article on this theme. Researching implicit memory: Get to the truth also explored whether traditional market research is adapting to techniques designed to understand 'true' implicit consumer motivations.

Coverage of Warc's Measuring Advertising Performance (MAP) conference, a two-day event in March 2013, was the third most-read paper that touched on neuroscience, and it noted that many presentations discussed ways for marketers to distinguish between rational and subliminal thinking.

The fourth study explained, from a psychological perspective, the nature of habit-forming behaviour and how it is triggered. Breaking the habit code, written by two experts from TNS Brand & Communications, cited Oreo, the biscuit brand, as an example of successful habit-forming and explained that contextual stability is essential to develop it.

Making up the top five was a paper that assessed 140 ads in four countries to find out whether emotions drive up sales. It found amusement to be the strongest predictor of sales.

Data sourced from Warc