Neuromarketing: A bibliometric perspective of the field Neuromarketing: A bibliometric perspective of the field

With an increase in studies relating to consumer perceptions, behaviors, cognition and potential markets, researchers are trying to understand the science of neuromarketing and the copious possibilities it puts forth. The present reviews in the ﬁeld of neuromarketing are often limited when it comes to the scope or the discussion of documents and further subjects. This serves as a limitation to the consolidative and theoretical implications in the ﬁeld. The study addresses this theoretical and methodological gap by charting the bibliometric analysis using the citation, cooccurrence, annual productivity, collaborations and sources approaches by analyzing a total of 390 articles extracted from 237 sources indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) database, within the time span of 2005 to 2023. The paper demonstrates the trends and evolution of neuro-marketing, the prominent theoretical and conceptual areas exploring the ﬁeld and the important keywords used throughout the analyzed literature. With this study, we present suggestions for imminent research to shape the scientiﬁc and practical approaches of neuromarketing through exploring the ﬁeld within the current framing, going beyond the existing frame of research in neuromarket-ing and transforming the neuromarketing research. This bibliometric analysis of neuromarketing research addresses aspects such as signiﬁcant authors and sources, cultural collaborations, and current themes which have a critical impact on this ﬁeld. Through these highlights, researchers can contribute to the development of neuromarketing knowledge and its practical use in order to make it possible to integrate neurological principles into future studies and commercial practices more eﬀectively.


Introduction
Researchers have recently started showing interest and attention to bibliometric methods in recent years albeit this methodology is not new (Vogel et al 2021).This increasing interest, according to Zupic and Čater (2015)is because of citation data availability on online databases and emerging analysis software.
Neuromarketing is comparatively a new field and does not contain a long history in academic domain.Professor Ale Smitds of Erasmus University in Rotterdam coined the phrase "neuromarketing" in 2002 to describe the use of neuroimaging methods in marketing research; using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) scanners, he described how customers' subconscious processesincluding their emotions, needs, and wantscan be measured, along with their responses to visual and auditory stimuli (Fisher et al 2010).Their study also mentions that initially, Bright House, an advertising firm, used fMRI in marketing research and created the term "neuromarketing".
Considering the data extracted from WoS Database (Web of Science) for this study, the temporal range was set to be from the beginning of time till present, and the results yielded articles on Neuromarketing first being published in 2005.Neuromarketing has been established as a research approach to evaluate the cognitive processing of marketing signals or stimuli (Mañas-Viniegra et al (2020)).
Neuromarketing is an integrated field where disciplines like Neuroscience, Economics, and Psychology is well engraved within.Alsharif et al (2021)highlighted that Neuromarketing is an approach encompassing neuroimaging and physiological instruments to register the neurotransmitters corresponding to consumers decision-making, attention, emotions and memory.It may well be construed as a measuring technique to evaluate the consumption behavior at an unconscious level with obtained data through marketing research.
Furthermore, (Nilashi et al (2020)) mentioned in their study that neuromarketing is viewed as an application of research in relation to market components such as consumer behavior with the goal of creating new tactics for decision-making on consumption.Researchers can analyze the neural activity of consumers by using neuromarketing tools.Three categories of basic neuromarketing tools may be used; those which record the metabolic activity of the brain, those that measure electrical activity and those without recording any neural activity (Calvert et al (2019); Mansor and Isa (2020); Zurawicki (2010)).This is especially useful for the advancement of gaining knowledge as Ariely and Berns (2010) and Garczarek-Bk et al (2021) and studied that Neuromarketing has a higher level of decision-making accuracy than traditional marketing techniques, which collect qualitative, subjective data.Moreover, Smidts et al (2014) added through their study that neural data are less noisy than data gathered using traditional marketing techniques, marketing researchers may be able to learn things using neuroscience methods that are not possible using conventional approaches.Hence, In order to overcome the shortcomings of con-Business Review: (2023) 18(1):132-151 S. Fayaz and R.R. Nawaz, 2023 ventional approaches and find solutions to marketing issues, firms and scientists have been drawn to neuromarketing research (Alsharif et al (2021); Hula (2022); Morin (2011); Sebastian (2014)).
The bibliometric analysis for this study is based on Web of Science (WoS) databases namely Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).The study employs the state-of-the-art bibliometric analysis tool, VosViewer to do the analysis over the database files exported from the WoS database site.The bibliometric analysis is a systematic way to understand and explore the academic review, contribution and its impact in the fields under study (Rodríguez-López et al 2020).Within the analysis all the units of academic worth have been especially focused as to new incumbent researchers may benefit from the study to further their own respective neuromarketing based studies.

Literature review
The use of neuroimaging and psychophysiological techniques in marketing has increased significantly during the past fifteen years, including Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Eye-Tracking.However, there is both excitement and skepticism surrounding the future of "neuromarketing" in market research.This paper and brief literature review of the prominent studies in the field of neuromarketing attempts to investigate the trends and future directions of the research.In lieu, we review studies carried out by renowned experts in the area, identified through a preliminary search.These significant works offer insightful perspectives into the growth and development of neuromarketing as a field.We hope to provide a basic knowledge of the state of neuromarketing today and its potential in the future by exploring these important contributions.This review will be used as a starting point for bibliometric analysis and discussion.
Unlike neuropsychology, which evaluates the relationship between the human brain and its cognitive functions, neuromarketing seeks to understand consumer behavior from a physiological perspective.(Kansal 2021;Morin 2011).The goal of neuromarketing, a hybrid field combining the three disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, and marketing, is to offer new and complementary insights rather than to replace conventional marketing strategies (Mansor and Isa 2020).According to Lee et al (2007) recent years have seen impressive advances in neuroimaging techniques, allowing researchers to directly explore the pattern, position, and timing of neural activity with exceptional accuracy and this is especially important in the fast-developingfield of neuroscience; despite these developments, marketing science has been slow to understand and utilize its potential.The paper further adds that the application of neuroimaging to market research, or "neuromarketing," has sparked intense debate in the field of neuroscience and recent research, however, has aimed to broaden the definition of neuromarketing to include a more thorough grasp of marketing science, moving beyond its conventional focus on commercial identity and buyer behavior.
In order to improve product design and presentation, recent studies have The field of neuromarketing has been defined and relevant areas for further research have been identified by researchers by merging findings from basic neuroscience and neuroeconomics.Abio Babiloni, another prominent researcher in the field, has collaborated with many authors to bring advancement to neuromarketing studies.According to their study, Vecchiato and Babiloni (2011), examining brain activity as participants watched commercial advertisements using high-resolution electroencephalographic (EEG) techniques and electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings, the findings showed that, catchy and enjoyable advertising boosted cortical function in the left hemisphere.
Trettel et al ( 2017) also argue that a dearth of transparency in the methodology employed by neuromarketing strategies may be the cause of the public's and the media's inaccurate view and overestimation of the capabilities of neuromarketing.They further added that it is challenging to distinguish among supported and unsubstantiated claims due to proprietary computational tools and approaches that are not completely vetted or released, which results in misunderstandings regarding the efficacy of neuromarketing.This literature review concludes by highlighting the expanding use of neuroimaging and psychophysiological methods in marketing research.Neuromarketing, despite skepticism and disagreement within the field of research, has a great deal of promise to reveal new insights into consumer behavior.This study provides a basis for understanding the present status and potential future directions of neuromarketing by reviewing the work of notable researchers and their contributions to the subject.Furthermore, it is impossible to overstate the value of bibliometric analysis in neuromarketing because it enables a thorough assessment of trends, significant contributors, and emerging topics, ensuring the successful application of neuromarketing insights in a variety of marketing contexts.vations of clusters and patterns of the studied articles.For this purpose, we selected the Web of Science as it is the most preferred database for bibliometric analysis (Huertas González-Serrano et al ( 2020)).We used the keyword Neuromarketing and with a hyphen, Neuro-Marketing to extract the exact matches.The database generated 607 documents, out of which 390 were journal articles published in English language-the selected documents for this study.The documents are examined using the software VosViewer version 1.6.16and Bibliometrix in R version 3.2.1.The results are displayed visually, using colors and clusters to illustrate the elaborated relationships between the citations.The size of the disc indicates frequency of the cited document while the lines and the distances display how strong are the interrelationships.

Analysis
Once the data were extracted, we analyzed it through VosViewer and Bibliometrix by R software that enabled us to visually study the collaborations between the researchers of publications, publication chronology, most-used keywords and so on, related to Neuromarketing.No temporal range was defined, and the extracted data consisted of the time span of 2005 to 2023, with 390 journal articles published in English language.The average citations per document is 18.76 and the annual growth rate of the journal articles on neuromarketing is 13.65%.The total references included are 16346.Through this study, we have performed the bibliometric analysis through citation analysis, co-occurrence analysis, annual productivity of articles, worldwide collaborations and publication sources.
The software classify the number of co-authored articles, countries and authors to be categorized into distinct clusters based on the metrics.This is then visualized by a 2-dimentional representation through groups and clusters.The size of each hued disc is proportionate to the number of articles from the author, region or source while the distance between two discs has an inverse relation to the number of supportive articles.The software, VosViewer, uses colors to distinguish the clusters.

Study 1: Citation Analysis
Citations are considered as the measure of impact and the article that is profoundly cited is considered as an important contribution to the literature (Zupic and Čater (2015)).First, we analyzed the citation unit: authors.The minimum number of documents of an author was selected to be 2 while the minimum number of citations of an author was selected to be 25.Of the 1164 authors, 101 met the thresholds.There are 7 clusters in total, with Babiloni, Fabio of cluster 3 showing the most link strength of 187 with 49 links, followed by (Lee 136 Business Review: (2023) 18(1):132-151 https://ir.iba.edu.pk/businessreview/vol18/iss1/7DOI: 10. 54784/1990-6587.1508Published by iRepository, June 2023 et al ( 2007)) from cluster 4 with a link strength of 145 and 68 links and Ma, Qingguo of cluster 6, with a link strength of 55 and 17 links.Second, the citation unit: Documents was analyzed.The minimum number of citations of a document was selected to be 25 and out of 390 documents, 77 met the thresholds, of which 66 had strong links.There are 11 clusters in total, with cluster 1 having the most (9) items.The most cited article (Lee et al (2007)) is from cluster 10 with 331 citations and 24 links, followed by (Khushaba et al ( 2013)) of cluster 10 with 241 citations and 11 links (Figure 2).The third most cited article (Plassmann et al (2012)) resides in cluster 1 with229 citations and 15 links.
Thirdly, we analyzed the citation unit: sources.The minimum number of documents of a source was selected to be 1 while the minimum number of citations of a source was selected to be 25.Of the 237 sources, 67 met the thresholds of which 62 has the largest set of connected items.However, all the items were chosen.There are 16 clusters in total with cluster 1 containing the most (10) items.Interestingly, the source with the most documents is Frontiers in Psychology of cluster 3 with 25 documents, followed by Frontiers of Neuroscience of cluster 7 with10 documents and Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, also of cluster 6 with 9 documents.The overlay visualization shows that the trend of these aforementioned sources lies in the years 2017-20 and onwards.
Lastly, the citation unit: Countries was analyzed.The minimum number of documents of a country was selected to be 10 and the minimum number of citations of a country was selected to be 25.Out of 70 countries, 17 met the thresholds.There are 3 clusters in total, with clusters 1 having the most (7) Business Review: ( 2023

Co-occurrence Analysis
In this, we studied the number of co-occurrences of all the keywords.The minimum number of occurrences of a keyword was selected to be 10.Out of the 1814 keywords, 50 met the threshold.There are a total of 5 clusters with cluster 1 having the most (15) items.The most prominent keyword is Neuromarketing from cluster 1 with 269 occurrences and 49 links followed by neuroscience in cluster 4 having 76 occurrences and 48 links.The third most prominent keyword is brain in cluster 3 with 75 occurrences and 48 links.Other observable keywords are attention, responses, decision-making, emotion, behavior and consumer neuroscience.The overlay visualization shows that the earlier trending keywords on neuromarketing research revolved around neuroeconomics, decision-making, pre-frontal cortex, neuro-ethics and so on, while, the recent trend (2020 and onwards) has graduated towards the keywords: social media, eye-tracking, media, impact, consumer, and electroencephalogram-EEG (Figure 03).
Through the years, the word brain appeared in 2007, has shown the most growth, appearing 71 times till yet.This is followed by the word responses which also first appeared in 2007 and shows a steady growth.The analysis also shows that the researchers began studying the neurological aspect of marketing focusing on the keyword decision-making in 2005, that progressed the trend of more advanced keywords like memory, neuroscience, emotion, and the ones formerly  mentioned, pertaining to the field of neuromarketing (Figure 4).

Annual Production of Articles
Indexed in the WoS database and analyzed through Bibliometrix, the annual production of articles shows that the stats start with only one article in the year 2005, with a significant growth, as the topic harnessed the researchers interests, by 47 articles in the year 2017.There was a slight decline in the years of 2018 and 2019 with 33 to 39 article publications respectively.About 64 articles on neuromarketing were published in 2021 and 57 in 2022.Additionally, 10 articles have been published in the current year i.e., 2023, up till now (Figure 5).
Business Review: (2023) 18(1):132-151  Discussing the collaborations of the researches between countries, it can be observed that the topic is yet to be evaluated in the context of cross-culture analysis.USA has collaborated with the most countries, mostly from Europe and Asia, with a total of 23 collaborations.The most collaborations between two countries happened between Malaysia and Saudi Arabia, and USA with Australia, Denmark, Italy and UK with a total of 5 times (Figure 6).

Publication Sources
The bibliometric analysis of the sources shows that the journals relating to the field of psychology and neuroscience have to most concentration of publications for neuromarketing preceding the journals specifically for neuromarketing, business and sustainability (Table 3).On other hand, the Journal of Marketing Research has been the most cited, with 438 citations followed by NeuroImage with 396 citations, Journal of Consumer Research with 376 citations, and Journal of Advertising Research with 329 citations (Table 4).Intriguingly, Frontiers in Neuroscience leads when it comes to the local impact by H index, which according to Bornmann and Daniel (2007) is an author index that recognizes both the productivity and citation impact of publications, a measure first adopted Business Review: ( 2023 for the scientists or scholars (Table 5).   in 2023 as well, showing a high growth in the interest of the field (Figure 7).

Documents Coupling
To map the network of neuromarketing, we have used the density and centrality concepts from the graph theory and have created a strategic diagram that has also been studied in various co-word analyses (Callon et al., 1991;Coulter et al (1998); He (1999); Liu et al (2012); Muñoz-Leiva et al ( 2012)).Topological analysis through this clustering methodology can be performed along with identifications of the research areas and patterns concerning the collaboration between co-citation network (Xu et al (2018); Chakraborty et al (2021)).To further elaborate it, density is also known as the internal cohesion and studies the strength of the network links that are present between the keyword cluster and Business Review: (2023) 18(1):132-151 143 In this paper, the documents coupling show Group 1 with brain -conf 13.2% electroencephalogram EEG-conf 81.8% responses -conf 19.6% having the frequency of 34 articles.Group 2 consists of brain -conf 20

Discussion
This analysis draws the implications of the recent developments on neuromarketing research and proposes the potential research avenues and information for future research.We have systematically explored the and conceptual underpinnings of the research field by using bibliometric analysis.This has been done so by analyzing the impact of different citation categories, such as authors, documents, sources, and countries, in neuromarketing research.We have been looking for the most important sources, trends, and areas of interest in this sector by thoroughly examining these units.Our findings give a valuable insight over time as to the development and evolution of neuromarketing research.
The methods for the analysis used are specifically citation analysis, network centrality analysis and cooccurrence analysis.The data was gathered and analyzed following a series of steps.First, we collected the data from Web of Science (WoS) databases namely Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), and Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI).
Business Review: ( 2023 No temporal range was defined for maximum output, though the time span showed the range of years between 2005 to 2023.About more than 600 documents were shown, and we applied articles and English language filters.This reduced the number to 390 articles.Data were exported in appropriate format to make a smooth transition towards analysis through the chosen software that were VosViewer and Bibliometrix.As a result of our analysis of authors, a total of seven different clusters have been found, with Fabio Babiloni's cluster 3 having a peak link strength of 187 and 49 links.Lee et al (2007) from cluster 4 and Ma, Qingguo of cluster 6 followed, displaying strong link strengths and a high number of connections within their respective clusters.The network visualization of citation-author analysis makes it prominent that the works by Lopes et al (2017) and by Lee (2017) on the subject is the most cited while the most publications on neuromarketing is by Fabio Babiloni, also reviewed by Duque-Hurtado et al (2020) in their review article.Other noteworthy mentions of individual author citation on the subject are the works of Khushaba et al ( 2013) and Plassmann et al (2012) these are the significant researchers whose work on neuromarketing cannot be ignored in the future researches on the subject.These results indicate that they have had considerable input into the neuromarketing literature and, therefore, future research should give a significant attention to their work.
Interestingly, the word growth over the years has evolved from neuroscience and responses to decision-making, behavior and brain.A sudden shift in the growth in studies using the aforementioned keywords can be observed from the year 2016 onwards and though Frontiers in Neuroscience has been among the very initial publishing journals on the subject, Frontiers in Psychology is seen to have increased its publications on neuromarketing from the year 2019 and onwards.Between 2017 and 2020, a trend of increased interest in neuromarketing research from these sources has been analyzed.This information highlights the increasing importance of neuromarketing in psychology and neurobiology research as a whole.The overlay visualization has given useful information about the evolution of popular keywords in neuromarketing research.In the earlier studies, keywords such as 'neuroeconomics,' 'decision-making,' 'pre-frontal cortex,' and 'neuro-ethics' prevailed the field.
However, from 2020, a shift in focus has begun with the emergence of newer keywords, including 'social media, ' 'eye-tracking,' 'media,' 'impact,' 'consumer,' and 'electroencephalogram-EEG'.As the field constantly evolves to include new research areas and techniques, this change in trend keywords reaffirms the dynamic nature of neuromarketing.The recent trend in this area indicates that the use of neuromarketing techniques for digital media and consumer behavior analysis within these platforms is on the rise.The change also shows the increasing importance of technological developments in neuromarketing studies such as eye trackers and EEGs that allow for more accurate and comprehensive consumer responses to be collected by researchers.
This has also been analyzed through two-dimensional plot of strategic diagram discussing the density and centrality of the co-occurrences.The graph has four quadrants in which they are referred to as mainstream (quadrant 1) also known as the motor themes discuss the themes that are central and de- The overall annual scientific production of articles in neuroscience shows a noteworthy increase in the publications in the year 2021, with the USA having the most publications.When analyzing countries, three clusters were identified, The USA country with the most documents, followed by Spain, England, Italy, and China.The analysis revealed that the most recent publications, with less than 15 documents in total, have been made by Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Lithuania and India.We have noted that the cross-cultural analysis of neuromarketing research is still an unexplored area, in our assessment of collaboration between countries.In 23 cases, the US has been involved in a very comprehensive international collaboration with predominantly European and Asian countries.Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and the United States accounted for the highest number of collaborations between both countries with Australia, Denmark, Italy or the UK each involving 5 collaborations.This finding raises the idea of a worldwide interest in neuromarketing research as well as an opportunity for researchers from several countries to work more closely together.

Conclusion
This research endeavors to study the development process, to evaluate the status of literature in the field of Neuromarketing.Recently, the neuromarketing term has gained momentum and ubiquity especially in the areas of its application in marketing and consumer decision-making behavior.It has been the focus of many directional studies, albeit, few in comparison as the field is ever evolving and respectively this study presents the latest bibliometric scenarios evolving in the field.We studied the course of development and assessing existing literature on neuromarketing as part of this research.The term "neuromarketing" has recently grown to a very high degree, especially as it is used in the areas of marketing and consumers' decisions.
These findings could serve as a crucial reference point for researchers who wish to develop their knowledge further, contributing to the continuous development of neuromarketing as an area of science.Major themes, trends and shifts in neuromarketing research landscape are revealed through our analysis of keyword cooccurrences.By observing these indicators, we'll be able to get an understanding of the present situation in this field and figure out which avenues are available for future research.In order to effectively apply neuromarketing insights in different marketing contexts, it is vital that researchers and practitioners are informed of current trends, techniques and topics as they continue to evolve.The growing recognition of the importance of neuromarketing and its potential to inform marketing practices through the application of neurobi-Business Review: (2023) 18(1):132-151 https://ir.iba.edu.pk/businessreview/vol18/iss1/7DOI: 10. 54784/1990-6587.1508Published by iRepository, June 2023 S. Fayaz and R.R. Nawaz, 2023 ological principles is underlined by the increasing prevalence of neuromarketing research.
Some factors such as advances in technologies that make it easier for researchers to conduct consumer behavior studies with greater precision, and the increased importance of gaining a knowledge of neurobiology's underlying processes underpinning consumers' decisions can be attributed to growing academic interest in neuromarketing.There is a special opportunity for researchers from diverse backgrounds to collaborate through the interdisciplinary nature of neuromarketing where marketing, psychology and neuroscience are combined.Innovation in the field of consumer behavior and preferences can be achieved through this intersectoral approach, facilitating the design of more efficient marketing strategies to match the particular needs and desires of target audiences.At the same time, neuromarketing research can contribute to deeper understanding of human cognitive and behavioral processes that govern consumer decisions as well as enrich a scientific knowledge base in these areas through its examination of basic brain mechanisms governing consumers' decision making.

Implication and Future Research
While neuromarketing research continues to evolve and grow, it is vital for researchers and experts to study the emerging trends, techniques and topics in order to make the most efficient use of neuromarketing as a marketing tool.The sustained growth and development of the neuromarketing area depends on studies, with quality content and methodological rigor, ethical responsibility as well as global relevance in their efforts to understand complex neural processes that underlie consumer decision making.It is essential for researchers to critically examine and evaluate the rigor, quality and reproducibility of neuromarketing studies as the field becomes more mature.This study also emphasizes the need for a global perspective on neuromarketing research, given that it requires an understanding of societal differences and their effects on consumer behavior due to the increasing interconnectedness of markets.
Therefore, researchers should pay special attention when conducting studies in neuromarketing to investigate culture factors which could contribute to the development of culturally sensitive and efficient marketing strategies and participate in more collaborative research papers.This paper particularly provides an arena for future research especially through the mainstream themes as per the centrality and impact.It will also help to foster the continuing development of neuromarketing as an area of research and ultimately benefit both practitioners, and especially researchers, looking for funding opportunities, which are typically connected to topics throughout the top prominent percentile or developing themes.

Research limitations
Even though the study contains a thorough bibliometric analysis on neuromarketing, it does have some limitations.First of all, the keyword, neuromarketing used is very specific and no variations were used to obtain the desired data.Secondly, the citation threshold was selected for the practicability of this particular study to present a structured and organized data.Thirdly, two filters were applied: research articles and English language to tailor our research and paper in order to provide a better future research avenue to emerging studies on the topic.Lastly, two modes of bibliometric analysis were used, and future research can expand these horizons.This limited bibliometric analysis in the area of neuromarketing gives an opportunity for future studies observing cultural influence on consumer behavior and decision making processes from a neurological point of view.To businesses and marketing professionals who seek to improve the effectiveness and cultural sensitivity of their marketing strategies, this paper could provide useful insight as to the significant works of prominent authors and the countries specializing and advancing in the neuromarketing.

Table 1 :
Frequency by Country

Table 2 :
Total Citations by Countries

Table 3 :
Most Relevant Sources Neuromarketing: A Bibliometric Perspective of the Field..

Table 4 :
Most Local Cited Sources Neuromarketing: A Bibliometric Perspective of the Field.. 32.5% responses -conf 26.1% with a frequency of 40 articles.Group 3 contains: decision-making -conf 41.7% activation -conf 80% brain -conf 11.8% with a frequency of 29 articles and lying in the second quadrant, Group 4: brain -conf 22.1% neuroscience -conf 32.6% science -conf 71.4% shows high impact and the highest frequency of 67 articles, signifying a strong development pertaining to the global research network.Group 5 has the second highest frequency of published articles and consists of brain -conf 17.6% responses -conf 21.7% attention -conf 22.5%, and group 6 has a frequency of 30 published articles consisting of brain -conf 14.7% behavior -conf 33.3% responses -conf 15.2%.