What is NeuroIS?

Neuro-Information-Systems (NeuroIS) relies on neuroscience and neurophysiological knowledge and tools to better understand the development, use, and impact of information and communication technologies. NeuroIS seeks to contribute to:

  • the development of new theories that make possible accurate predictions of IS-related behaviors, and
  • the design of information systems that positively affect economic and non-economic variables (e.g., productivity, satisfaction, adoption, well being).

Source: Communications of the AIS

A book entitled Fundamentals of NeuroIS: Information Systems and the Brain indicates that NeuroIS examines topics lying at the intersection of IS research and neurophysiology and the brain sciences. Specifically, NeuroIS studies comprise conceptual and empirical works, as well as theoretical and design science research. It includes research based on all types of neuroscience and neurophysiological tools, spanning techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electroencephalography (EEG), hormone assessments, skin conductance and heart rate measurement, eye-tracking, and facial electromyography. Also, it is already foreseeable that quantitative and molecular genetics will play a role in future NeuroIS research.

Analyses of the existing NeuroIS literature show that contributions often address the following topics, among others: employment of neuroscience and neurophysiological methods and tools to study technology adoption, mental workload, Web site design, virtual worlds, technostress, emotions in human–computer interaction, e-commerce, social networks, information behavior, trust, IT security, usability, avatars, music and user interfaces, multitasking, memory, attention, IS design science, software development, risk, knowledge processes, and business process modeling and enterprise systems. As well, the discourse on methodological and ethical issues has been the subject of discussion in the extant literature. Software prototypes of NeuroIS applications, which use bio-signals (e.g., EEG, skin conductance, pupil dilation) as system input, are also an important topic in the field, and NeuroIS scholars believe that this topic of neuro-adaptive information systems is one that holds significant potential, both from a theoretical and practical viewpoint.