Do you think we could have predicted from your brain activity whether you’d open this field? Indeed, this is increasingly possible and the lab in which I did a PostDoc is known for advancing this ‘brain-as-predictor’ approach (read more e.g. here). I am currently working on combining inter-subject correlation and related neuroimaging methods with this approach.

The following video illustrates the audience-wide brain response to a health prevention message from a recent BzGA-campaign on risky drinking (the BzGA is roughly the German equivalent of the CDC). What you can see is that the message evokes similar spatio-temporal brain activity patterns (the left and right brain represent group averages of fMRI activity from ca. 10 viewers).

Our results suggest that this approach can be used to derive markers of communication success. In other words, if the message had not been received by the brains of individual audience members, then they would not exhibit these similar spatiotemporal responses and instead idle along at their own pace. However, the fact that the message aligns the brains of multiple recipients in a similar fashion demonstrates that it must have arrived in their brains. My lab at MSU connects these shared audience responses to what I call micro-level media effects,  and to campaign success at larger scales.

Representative publications to date include : schmaelzle2022pieman, schmaelzle2020iscreview, schmaelzlegrall2020coupled, imhof2017how, imhof2020eegisc,schmaelzle2015engaged

Virtual Reality (VR) is going to change the way we communicate and interact. In the CARISMAlab (Center for Avatar Research and Immersive Social Media Applications), we use advanced laboratory technologies of today to simulate and study the transformtive impact of the communication technologies of tomorrow.

For example, one recent line of research uses VR-integrated eye-tracking technology to rigorously study the nexus between exposure to messages, reception mechanisms, and message effects. This is important because previous research and theorizing about exposure largely relied on macro-level approaches (e.g. audience ratings for TV, radio, or other channels). However, macro-level data cannot ascertain whether a given individual actually attends to a message. Micro-level approaches, on the other hand, had limited ecological validity and largely relied on laboratory paradigms in which participants were forced to watch messages. Our “VR Billboard Paradigm” simulates a drive down a highway along which billboards are placed. VR establishes a realistic communication context and people are free to decide for themselves whether to look at a given message. Using eye-tracking, we then measure whether this happens. We show that this explains and predicts message effects, such as whether a message will be remembered or forgotten. Most recently, we also showed that hidden algorithmic manipulations can basically “knock” messages into your memory – like in the sci-fi movie inception – and that users didn’t notice that this happened. Obviously, this has many implications far beyond highway billboards (think: Metaverse, cognitive liberty, algorithmic targeting etc.)..

Representative publications to date include:
schmaelzle2023vrbillboard, bente2023emotionrecognition, jeon2024vrculturaltargeting, lim2024vrcity, cho2025inceptionjoc, cho2025eyescausal

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has enormous implications for communication because it allows generating messages at scale and in a fully automated fashion. We recognized this potential of AI early on and * .

* the text above is generated by an AI language model and thus may contain inaccuracies and hallucinations

Representative publications to date include
schmaelzle2022messageengine, lim2022promptengineering, lim2024aiteacher, lim2025asi, schmaelzle2025campaignr