Techniques employed in the field of neuroscience, such as eye-tracking, electroencephalography, and functional magnetic resonance imaging, have been important in informing our understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying tobacco smoking. These techniques are now increasingly being used to investigate the likely impact of tobacco control measures.
In this narrative review, we outline the value of these methodological approaches in answering policy relevant tobacco control research questions, with a particular focus on their use in examining the impact of standardised cigarette packaging and health warnings. We also examine the limitations of these methodologies and provide examples of how these technologies can be used to answer other policy relevant questions.
We argue that neuroscience techniques can provide more objective evidence of the impacts of policy measures, allow investigation where it is not possible to conduct behavioural manipulations and facilitate a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the impacts of tobacco control policies such as standardised packaging, health warnings, point of sale displays and mass media campaigns.
Rather than replacing more traditional methods of examining tobacco control measures, such as observational experiments, surveys and questionnaires, neuroscience techniques can complement and extend these methods.
Neuroscience techniques can provide more objective evidence of the impacts of policy measures, allow investigation where it is not possible to conduct behavioural manipulations and facilitate a deeper understanding of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the impacts of tobacco control policies.Rather than replacing more traditional methods of examining tobacco control measures, such as observational experiments, surveys and questionnaires, neuroscience techniques can complement and extend these methods.