SS&C Technologies : You may have Siri and Alexa, but do you have Amee?

• What motivates employees?
• How can we improve training content to measure employee retention and performance?
• Should you trust your intuition and listen to your emotions in decision making?

Although we have developed a broad range of techniques in attempt to answer these questions, nearly each one relies on focus groups, surveys or self/peer/manger reviews-all of which are notorious for inconsistency and inaccuracy. With neuroscience, we are able to get a direct, objective measure on what is happening in the brain based on physical activity and neural metrics. This illuminates patterns in thinking we are not consciously aware of, and gives a more accurate impression of how employees receive, interpret and retain content.

Introducing AMEE, the four areas neuroscientists have identified to determine the effectiveness of content.

1. Attention: Brain activity responsible for perception and cognition, measures alertness.
2. Memory: Brain activity for encoding, retrieving and storing and integrating information into understanding.
3. Emotion: Brain activity for identifying emotional states to help determine how we perceive and think about the information.
4. Engagement: Metric comparing attention, memory and emotion across large groups of individuals receiving the same content.

By analyzing these four metrics, we can determine what information is retained short-term versus long-term, the emotions a piece of content raises, understand decision-making and identify areas of risk.

Thinking about the wide-ranging applicability of this new technology, how would you use neuroscience in your business? What questions would you want to answer?

The SS&C NeuroLab uses these innovative techniques to test various content types (training videos, eLearning courses, compliance programs, investor relations communications, client presentations, etc.) and measure the efficiency and efficacy of the interaction. By measuring brainwave activity using electroencephalographic (EEG) technology, we provide our clients a unique insight into the effectiveness of their content, which enables instructors, designers and content creators to refine and improve results.

The SS&C Neurolab neuroscience team is led by Moran Cerf. Moran is a neuroscience and business professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and is also an active member of the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems. Moran's research uses neuroscience to understand the underlying mechanisms of our psychology, behavior changes, emotion, decision making and dreams. His works address questions such as: 'How are conscious percepts formed in our brain?', 'How can we control our emotions?' and 'Which brain mechanisms determine if we find content engaging?'

For more information about the service. To learn more, email the SS&C Learning Institute at sscli_support@sscinc.com.

SS&C Learning Institute

neuroscience , SS&C Learning Institute , Neurolab , EEG